All About Love
I wanted to quickly share with you an artist I’ve enjoyed a lot. His name is Jonny P. He released a song called “Shine On,” and I love it sooooo much. The feel of this particular song is somewhat along the musical styles of Ronald Isley & Al Green put together. His music is so unique that I can’t even really fit him in any category. All I know his music smooth and pleasant to the ear. As I seriously dig in to finding more diverse music (which is not easy believe it or not, which is why blogs are still necessary), I am stunned to find more and more younger artist that choose to produce new music with a classic flair. Not only have they taken their new music old school, there are lots of fans to go along with them. This has really restored my faith that their are new artists that value quality, and not just dump a bunch of manure on the internet (and expect to get rich). Check Jonny out on Spotify, I’ve already saved several of his albums. Lots of real talent out here guys.
It’s such a shame that Robbie Dupree became a one hit wonder. Robbie made it big with his smash hit called “Steal Away,” released in 1980. This was my favorite song, I used to play it all the time. The song has such a catchy tune, and he used an instrument that sounded like it came from India (I don’t know what it’s called), made the song even more interesting and unusual. The song hit #6 on the Hot 100 Charts; and that was pretty much it! Actually, on the same record, he had a song called Hot Rod Hearts, but it only reached #15. Now, 15 wasn’t a bad position at all, but I felt that this song was quite boring unfortunately. You know what? Depree released a song called “Brooklyn Girls” in 1981, It reached #54, yet I felt the song sounded waaaaaay better than “Hot Rod Hearts.” I guess there just wasn’t a market for Dupree’s kind of music. Dupree recorded many albums since then, but no more hits. Mr. Dupree is about 71 now, and still performs to my understanding.
Chaka Khan’s Through The Fire (1984). I immediately loved this song when it came out. You know, I didn’t think I’ve noticed until now, but take a look at all the names involved in this one song! Wow, you need several people to make a hit song? That’s why nobody can make money, because every single person involved wants their cut!! But, I digress…… Any whooooo. “Through The Fire,” became one of my most favorite Chaka Khan songs. Now, it’s funny because, chart wise, the song didn’t do that well. It hit its highest at 15th position on the Hip Hop/R&B Charts; but on the Top 100 Chart, its highest peak was 60th position. I’m kinda in disbelief, because in the Black community this song was very popular back in the day. It’s hard for me to think these numbers were that low. Maybe it ranked higher in another category?