Songoftheday 8/31/18 - Well I'm out to have a real good time and now you want try to fling me, but friends of yours are friends of mine so don't be tryin to pling me...
from the album Portrait (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from the R&B group Portrait, who got together in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, and rode the new jack swing wave with their self-titled debut album in 1992. The lead single from the record was "Here We Go Again!", a classic of that genre written by the band's Phil Johnson, Eric Kirkland, Michael Saulsberry, and Irving Washington and produced by Saulsberry, the uptempo track would be their first and by far biggest hit...
Portrait's sole top-40 pop hit, "Here We Go Again" spent two weeks right under the top ten on the American pop chart in February of 1993.The single took a week at #3 on Billboard's R&B chart, while the dance remixes on the single helped it rise to #30 on their Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the single was a rare R&B top-40 hit in the UK at #37, and was a minor hit in Australia (#41), New Zealand (#48), and Canada at #73.
The second single from their debut was the jazzy "Honey Dip", which made it to #18 on the R&B chart while "bubbling under" Billboard's pop Hot 100 at #102. That was followed by the ballad "Day By Day", which peaked at #42 on the R&B list. The next year, the foursome very respectably covered the 70s soul classic "Be Thankful For What You Got" for the Addams Family Values movie, and got to #59 on the R&B chart.
In 1995, Saulsberry, Kirkland, Johnson, and Washington returned for their second album All That Matters. The first single, "I Can Call You", didn't catch on like "Here We Go Again", it did climb to #22 on the R&B chart, while "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #119. But the second release, a smooth cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love", put them back on the pop chart at #93 (#51 R&B). It was their biggest international success, topping the chart in New Zealand, and reaching the top-40 in Australia (#15) and France (#24), and almost did it in the UK (#41). Their most recent chart hit came a year later, when they appeared on Quincy Jones' single "Slow Jams", which got to #19 on the R&B chart and #68 on the pop Hot 100. They split shortly after, reuniting in 2000 for a pair of indie records. This year, Saulsberry and Phillips got back together with new member Ruben Cruz for a new single, "In The Moment".
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Here's the group appearing on Soul Train to promote the single...
Up tomorrow: The Purple One plays with numbers.
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