Songoftheday 4/11/23 - Far away from that life so young that's when you used to know, many dreams since then you've fed up come and gone that time might show...
"Don't You Forget It" - Glenn Lewis
from the album World Outside My Window (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song comes from R&B singer Glenn Lewis, who grew up Glennon Ricketts Jr in Ontario, Canada and the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Starting his music career young, and released his first single "The Thing To Do" on a local Canadian label Big Beat in 1997. After that song and a couple subsequent songs received nominations for Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys), Lewis was signed to Epic Records for the U.S..
In the spring of 2002, Lewis released his debut album World Outside My Window, preceded by the lead single "Don't You Forget It". Written by Glenn with producer Andre Harris, the song has Glenn comforting a woman who went through a breakup (I'm assuming not with Glenn). The production is incredibly good, in the retro style like Donell Jones had success with a few years back, and while Lewis' neo-soul vocals aren't trying to shake the foundation like Maxwell and D'Angelo's gymnastics, it's definitely a smooth delivery in the Stevie Wonder ballad style that flourishes at just the right times. This record was way better than it had a right to be, and it was a slow burn on R&B radio before it got a chance to rise on the pop chart, becoming his first and biggest hit. The music video has Lewis and a woman playing missed connections in the city...
"Don't You Forget It" landed in the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in March of 2002, while going to #10 on their R&B singles chart. On the radio, the song also went to #20 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format list. The World Outside My Window album, released in March as the single was cresting, came in at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list.
Glenn's follow-up single, "It's Not Fair", lived up to its name, with the ballad stalling all the way down at #90 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart.
The following year, Lewis released what was intended to be the lead single for his next album, "Back For More". However after the song, which featured Canadian reggae artist Kardinal Offishall, stunted down at #76 on the R&B Singles chart, the label stopped and dropped the singer. Even so, Lewis got a Grammy nomination for a side project he did, as a featured singer with Amel Larrieux (of Groove Theory) on jazz-soul artist Stanley Clarke's remake of Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's "Where Is The Love". Ironically, the song lost the trophy for Best R&B Duo/Group Vocal Performance to another cover of a Flack/Hathaway song, Beyonce and Luther Vandross' take on "The Closer I Get To You".
After a false start in 2010 hurt by internet leaks, Lewis re-emerged in 2013 with his second and most recent album, Moment Of Truth. The big single from the record, "Can't Say Love", climbed to #21 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult R&B radio chart.
(8/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Next up, in a televised appearance with a band...
and finally, just Glenn and a guitar player for VIBE magazine...
Up tomorrow: Country singer reveals his inner persona.
Comments