Songoftheday 2/21/18 - You called me up and I came to see you you say you been awake all night, it hurts me deep inside when I see you cryin' whatever's wrong I'll make it right...
from the album T.E.V.I.N. (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 20
Today's song of the day comes from soul singer Tevin Campbell, who with the help of both Quincy Jones, who signed him on his label Qwest, and Prince, who cast Tevin in his movie Graffiti Bridge, landed his first big pop hit in the spring of 1991 with "Round and Round" from the film. That summer, he contributed another song to the Ice Cube/Cuba Gooding Jr flick Boyz In The Hood. The resulting new jack swing jam "Just Ask Me To" was also released as a single as climbed to #9 on Billboard's R&B chart and slipped on to the pop Hot 100 at #88. Those two songs would appear on Tevin's debut solo release T.E.V.I.N. in the fall. The third release and lead into the promotion of that record would be the downtempo love ballad "Tell Me What You Want Me To Do". Written by Tevin and producer Narada Michael Walden along with Sally Jo Dakota, the more mature sound of the track and his stunning pipes set up for his biggest radio success...
"Tell Me What You Want Me To Do" became Tevin's first top ten pop hit and the highest charting single of his career in February of 1992. The single was also his first solo outing to top Billboard's R&B chart, where it stayed for a week (he had previously went to #1 as a featured singer on Quincy Jones' "Tomorrow" in 1990). It even crossed over to their Adult Contemporary (or easy listening) radio format chart at #43. Internationally, the record went to #9 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in the Netherlands at #31. It was also his first minor hit in the UK at #63.
Tevin's next single from his debut would be the smooth mid-tempo soul of "Goodbye", but while it was a huge hit on urban stations, spending two weeks at #2 on Billboard's R&B chart, the song stalled down at #85 on the pop Hot 100. That was followed by a respectable cover of the Brothers Johnson disco nugget "Strawberry Letter 23", which did a little better on mainstream radio, reaching #53 on the pop chart and slipping in at #40 on R&B. Then came the ballad "Alone With You", which brought Tevin back to #1 on the R&B chart, but still missed the pop top-40 at #72. Lastly, another slow love offering, "Confused", missed the Hot 100, but managed to give Campbell the quite astonishing feat of having seven top-40 R&B singles from his debut album when it peaked at #33. In 1993, that T.E.V.I.N. album would be nominated for a Grammy Award for best R&B male vocal performance, losing out to jazz great Al Jarreau's Heaven and Earth album (admitted a much lower profile choice).
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Here's Tevin appearing on Live At The Apollo to perform the song, and OMFG that note at 3:27 is otherworldly...
Lastly, here he is in concert in 2013, giving it his all...
Up tomorrow: A single that changed the face of rock music, name-checking deodorant in the process.
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