Songoftheday 1/19/18 - Love is a hunger that burns in my soul, but you never notice the pain...
from the album Curtis Stigers (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's song of the day comes from pop singer/songwriter/sax man Curtis Stigers, who was born in Idaho and started out in as a jazz musician and backup singer before nabbing his own record deal in the late 1980s. Switching to a soft-pop vocal style not unlike Michael Bolton (and even sporting the mullet), he released his debut album in 1991. The first single from the record was the slow lite-blues-pop number "I Wonder Why". Written by Stigers with producer Glen Ballard, it would be his first and biggest success...
"I Wonder Why" became Curtis' sole top-40 pop hit, reaching the top ten in November of 1991. The single also climbed to #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart. Internationally, the record climbed all the way to #5 in the UK (a rare feat for this soft-pop type of single). The follow-up single, "You're All That Matters To Me", made it up to #17 on the AC chart, but only managed to sneak on to the pop Hot 100 at #98. However, that song did really well in Britain, following "I Wonder Why" into the top ten at #6. His third release, the uptempo "Sleeping With The Lights On", peaked a wee bit higher at #96 (and #53 in the UK). Finally, "Never Saw A Miracle" matched his debut's performance on AC radio at #5, and returned him to the British top-40 at #34, but "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #107. Meanwhile, also in 1992, Curtis contributed a cover of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love & Understanding" to the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, which at multi-platinum status is possibly is his most listened-to track.
In 1995, Stigers lost the mullet and released his sophomore album Time Was, which was ignored in America, but in the UK did gift him with yet another top-40 hit with the title track "This Time" (#28). A second single, "Keep Me From The Cold", topped out at #57. Leaving his label eventually to sign on with the more jazz oriented Concord Records in the 2000s, Curtis has carved a consistent career of music, with his most recent set, One More For The Road, being released in 2017, and went to #3 on the Jazz Albums Chart.
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Here's Curtis performing the song live in 1992...
Next from a concert in 2008 in Germany...
Finally, a live TV appearance in Ireland in 2015...
Up tomorrow: Female rappers with a health lesson.
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