Songoftheday 4/9/20 - The sweetest woman in the world can be the meanest woman in the world...
from the album A Thin Line Between Love & Hate (Original Soundtrack) (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 2
Today's song of the day comes from the Houston-based R&B group H-Town, who scored a big hit in the spring of 1993 with their sultry new jack of "Knockin' Da Boots". A year later, the trio of brothers "Dino" and "Shazam" Connor and friend "G.I." Jackson contributed a song to the soundtrack to the basketball movie Above The Rim, "Part Time Lover", which was paired on a single with Al B Sure's "I'm Still In Love With You" and rose to #9 on Billboard's R&B chart and #57 on the pop Hot 100. By the end of 1994, they were back with their second album on Luke Campbell's (of 2 Live Crew) label Luke, Beggin' After Dark. While their debut album reached the top-20 and sold over a million copies, this one barely scraped the top half of the albums sales charts, shifting half that number. Second single "Emotions" did OK at urban radio, just missing the top ten at #11, but stalled at the halfway mark of #51 on the pop Hot 100. While they were in the process of splitting from the label, the trio went the soundtrack route again, recording a cover of the classic soul ballad "A Thin Line Between Love & Hate" for the Warner Brothers soundtrack to the movie of the same name starring Martin Laurence and Regina King. The original, recorded by the soul group the Persuaders and written by producers Robert and Richard Poindexter along with Robert's wife Jackie Members, topped Billboard's R&B chart for two weeks in 1971, and climbed to #15 on the pop Hot 100...
H-Town's version attempts to update it for the younger hip-hop oriented crowd, bringing in powerhouse singer Shirley Murdock as well as funk master Roger Troutman to smooth things over. It was released as the second single from the soundtrack after the Snoop Dogg-assembled LBC Crew's "Beware Of My Crew", which went to #51 on the R&B chart and #75 on the pop Hot 100...
H-Town's version of the song got them back in favor with mainstream radio, becoming the group's second top-40 pop hit in May of 1996. The song also climbed to #6 on Billboard's R&B chart as well. Internationally, the single was a minor hit in New Zealand at #50. The Thin Line soundtrack did pretty decent, rising to #22 on the Top Albums chart, also helped by a third single, crooner Eric Benet's "Let's Stay Together", which climbed to #45 on the R&B list.
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Here's H-Town and Shirley Murdock performing live for TV along with an interview...
Up tomorrow: Australian singer is bound.
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