Songoftheday 7/25/19 - Girls there's something wrong with me, every time I'm alone with you...
from the album The Icon is Love (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15
Today's song of the day comes from legendary soul singer/songwriter/producer Barry White, who originally was born in Texas in 1944. Blessed with a smooth and deep singing voice, White started his music career in the 1960s both as a solo artist (with little success) and a songwriter, where he scored a few hits with female artist Felice Taylor, with her single "I Feel Love Comin' On", written by White, climbing to #11 in the UK in 1967.
It took until the early 1970s for White to see his star soar, first as a producer with the female vocal group Love Unlimited. Their first single, "Walking In The Rain With The One I Love", went to #14 on the American pop chart and #6 on the R&B list. He eventually married the lead singer for the group, Glodean James, after fleeing their original label for 20th Century Records. White released his debut solo album I've Got So Much To Give on 20th Century in 1973. The lead single from the set, "I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby", topped Billboard magazine's R&B chart for two weeks, spent a week at #3 on their pop Hot 100, and even crossed over to #27 on their Adult Contemporary radio chart. A year later, his song "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe", became Barry's first and only #1 hit on the pop Hot 100, white spending three weeks at #1. His third album only a year later, contained that track as well as a third #1 R&B hit in "You're The First, The Last, My Everything" (pop #2).
Barry's next record, Just Another Way To Say I Love You, spun off another #1 R&B hit with "What Am I Gonna Do With You" (pop chart #8) in 1975. Two years later, he returned with his biggest success on the R&B chart, "It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me", which reigned on Billboard's list for five weeks and peaked at #4 pop. But just as the disco genre itself was reaching its peak at the end of the 1970s, White's own hit streak was slowing down, with his single "Your Sweetness Is My Weakness" reaching #2 for three weeks on the R&B chart but stalling down at #60 on the pop Hot 100 in 1978. After that single, he still was charting consistently with urban radio, but failed to score a single top ten soul hit in the entire decade of the 1980s.
Despite his modest success in the 80's, it took until 1990 for White to return in a big way when he guested on Quincy Jones' slow jam classic "Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)", which topped the R&B chart. Now signed on the same label as Jones, A&M, his next solo album, Put Me In Your Mix, saw its title track "Put Me In Your Mix" spend a week at #2 on the R&B list in 1991.
Barry put out his fourth album with A&M, The Icon Is Love, in 1994. The lead single was a downtempo jam that found favor with both his loyal R&B audience as well as mainstream radio, for even though the song was written by White with Gerald Levert and Edwin Nicholas, it sounded just like a Babyface number...
"Practice What You Preach" became White's eleventh and final top-40 pop hit in December of 1994. The song would also bring Barry back to the top of Billboard's R&B chart for a seventh and final time for three weeks. Internationally, the single peaked at #20 in the UK as a double-sided single with "Love Is The Icon", and also hit the top-40 in Canada (#31) and the Netherlands (#38).
The follow-up single in the U.S., "Come On", spent 20 weeks on the R&B chart, topping out at #12, but only got to #87 on the pop Hot 100 in America and #88 in Canada. Meanwhile in the UK, the Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis selection "I Only Want To Be With You" was released with much better success, peaking at #36 there. Finally, his third and last single from the set in America, "There It Is", climbed to #54 on the R&B list. The Icon Is Love album was his seventh to go to #1 on the R&B albums chart in Billboard, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, which TLC's CrazySexyCool won that year.
In 1996, White featured on Tina Turner's single "In Your Wildest Dreams", which went to #34 on the R&B chart in the U.S. (his last top-40 soul hit) and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #101, while going to #32 in the UK. Three years later in 1999, White put out what would be his last studio album, Staying Power. The title track "Staying Power" went to #45 on the R&B chart, and won White a Grammy Award for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance in 1999, while the Staying Power album won another one for Best R&B Traditional R&B Performance the following year. Also in 2000, a remix of his 1976 hit "Let The Music Play", reworked by Funkstar Deluxe, was a minor hit in the UK (#45) and the Netherlands (#91). In 2003, after health troubles due to his weight and diabetes, White passed away at the age of 58. But his legacy lives on as one of the masters of disco and soul music.
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Here's Barry appearing live on Oprah to sing "Practice What You Preach" live...
and again on Letterman...
and on the Jon Stewart Show...
Up tomorrow: The biggest stars of soul come together for a movie about love in the city.
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