Songoftheday 12/22/17 - Ok so your heart is broken you're sitting around mopin', Mopin' mopin' cryin' cryin' you say you're even thinking about dying...
from the album Warm Your Heart (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day comes from veteran singer Aaron Neville, who is part of the seminal New Orleans soul group the Neville Brothers. However, he got his start as a solo artist, with his first hit single going all the way back to 1960, when the single "Over You" climbed to #21 on Billboard's R&B chart. Neville truly didn't break out of the local bayou market until six years later, when he took the song "Tell It Like It Is" all the way to #1 on the R&B chart and #2 on the pop Hot 100. Although he wasn't able to follow up that success in the sixties and seventies, that classic single gave him enough notoriety that his name never became like those of the countless forgotten "one hit wonders" of that decade.
After joining up with his brothers to perform and record in the late 70s/early 80s (along with a one-off solo album in 1986), Aaron came back to mainstream radio in a big way in 1989, when he guested on Linda Ronstadt's Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind album. Two of the duets from the record reached the top-40, with "Don't Know Much" going to #2 and "All My Life" peaking at #11. The pair won back-to-back Grammys for the two songs as well. Running on that momentum, Neville recorded another album, only his third solo studio set in over thirty years. The first single from Warm Your Heart was a cover of a song made popular by the R&B group the Main Ingredient, who took the advice-giving song "Everybody Plays The Fool" to #3 on the pop chart in America in 1972...
Aaron didn't stray from the vocal treatment of the song, but did take it from a harmonizing group focus to being a lite-reggae mantra that was all about his voice, as soft as velvet...
Neville's version of "Everybody Plays The Fool" became his third and final top-10 pop hit (and so far last top-40 hit in America) in October of 1991. The single topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart for a week as well (it was his third and last to do so). Internationally, the record went to #1 in New Zealand for two weeks, and peaked at #19 in Canada. The second single released from Warm Your Heart, "Somewhere Somebody", missed the pop Hot 100 but climbed to #6 on the Adult Contemporary chart, as did the third release and a duet with Linda Ronstadt (who produced the album) in the cover of the Peaches & Herb 60s hit "Close Your Eyes".
In 1993, Aaron released his next album, The Grand Tour, and while it didn't spin off any top-40 pop hits, the record actually outsold its predecessor, earning Neville a platinum album for shipping over a million copies. The lead single from the set, "Don't Take Away My Heaven", stalled at #56 on the Hot 100, but climbed to #4 on the Adult Contemporary format chart, and was hit biggest solo hit in Canada at #17. The title track, a cover of an iconic George Jones song, reached the top-40 on the Country Airplay chart (#38), and #90 on the pop chart. He appeared on the massively popular soundtrack to the film The Bodyguard, with his collaboration with sax man Kenny G, "Even If My Heart Would Break", "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #122 (and #28 AC) but probably is still sending him healthy royalty checks.
Aaron came back in 1995 with his record The Tattooed Heart. The first single "Can't Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)", is up to now his most recent charting pop hit at #99 (and #23 AC). From that same record, a cover of the Bill Withers song "Use Me" slipped on to the R&B chart at #93. His most recent hit single came in 2006 with the Impressions' "It's All Right" (#28, Adult Contemporary), though he's had a top ten album on the R&B tally in 2010 with My True Story. His latest album, Apache, reached the R&B albums list at #16 and spawned a smooth jazz hit with "I Wanna Love You" (#22).
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Here's Aaron performing live with his brothers in 1991...
Up tomorrow: R&B singer gets a little hot and heavy.
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