Robbed hit of the week 4/8/24 - Heather Headley's "I Wish I Wasn't"...

 

 

"I Wish I Wasn't" - Heather Headley

from the album This Is Who I Am (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #55 

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer and actress Heather Headley, who grew up on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Her family moved to America when she was a teenager, where she finished school and studied musical theater in college. In 1997, she starred in the musical adaptation of the Disney film The Lion King on Broadway, written by Elton John and Tim Rice. Three years later, Elton and Tim brought Heather back to be the lead and title role in their musical opera knockoff Aida, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2000. While the companion album spun off the top-40 pop hit "Written In The Stars" for Elton and country singer LeAnn Rimes, one of Headley's tracks, "A Step Too Far" with Elton and co-star Sherie Rene Scott got played on "easy listening" radio and made it to #15 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary airplay chart. 

Venturing into off-stage soul music, Headley was signed by RCA Records, and released her debut album This Is Who I Am in the autumn of 2002. The lead single from the record, "He Is" reached the Top-40 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart at #38, while landing her first hit on the all-genre Hot 100 at #90. The R&B record was remixed into a house music anthem, and climbed to #4 on Billboard's Dance Club Play list.

The second single from the debut would be "I Wish I Wasn't". Written by producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis with James Wright from the gospel-R&B group Sounds Of Blackness, the song has Heather upset over a partner she suspects is cheating. The waves of regret wash over her, wishing she had never met him. The ending is so damn bittersweet as she gives in to his contrition, but it's so real. The original production for Jam & Lewis is light (for them) and allows her voice to really shine here. The single and video version lops off the ending and has her make the right choice, and Headley's acting chops are on full display here...

While "I Wish I Wasn't" climbed to #15 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, spending a hefty 37 weeks on the list, and topped their older-skewing Adult R&B radio list, it peaked a few notches below the halfway mark on the Hot 100 in July of 2003. Dance remixes of the track helped it have its biggest success on the Dance Club Play chart at #5. The This Is Who I Am album, released in October of 2002, crested at #38 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #14 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half-million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "I Wish I Wasn't" was nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, which went to Beyonce for "Dangerously In Love II". Heather was also up for Best New Artist, losing to goth-rock band Evanescence. 

Headley returned at the start of 2006 with her second (and final) album for RCA, In My Mind. The title track and first single "In My Mind" hit #16 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, rose to #75 on the Hot 100, and landed her first #1 on the Dance Club Play list. A second release, "Me Time", got to #35 on the R&B Singles chart. The album, which topped the R&B Albums chart and came in at #5 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, also sold over a half million copies. 

 

Despite that success, she left RCA and secular music behind temporarily, following her pastor father's lead and concentrating on gospel music. Under EMI Gospel Headley put out Audience Of One in 2009, which won the Grammy for Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album the following year. A track from the set, "Jesus Is Love" with singer/pianist Smokie Norful, was also up for Best Gospel Performance, which went home with Donnie McClurkin and Karen Clark Sheard for "Wait On The Lord". The album still made the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #27, as well as the top ten on the R&B Albums list at #6. That was followed by a return to non-religious soul with Only One In The World, which took a week at #187 on the Billboard 200 while peaking at #25 on the R&B Albums list.

Heather's most recent studio album, Broadway My Way, was released in 2018. She's been more prominent on stage, appearing in the musical adaptation of The Bodyguard in London, while showing up on TV in Chicago Med among others, and playing gospel singer Clara Ward in the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect. 

(8/10)

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Here's the extended club mix from Junior Vasquez that helped the song make the top-5 on the dance chart...

Next up, appearing on television to promote the album...

 and lastly, Heather performing live for her AOL Sessions gig in 2002...