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Tag: Teena Marie

  • New Release of the Week 6/9/09: Teena Marie

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    Former protege of Rick James, vanilla soul sister, the one and only Lady T. Whatever you call her, Teena Marie is back with her first album in four years, “Congo Square”. The first single, “Can’t Last a Day” has already made noise at urban radio, and with a guest lineup including MC Lyte, Howard Hewett and Faith Evans, it’s sure to spawn even more hits. The R&B scene has been extra-weak so far this year, so here’s hoping Teena’s new album is the kickoff for a good second half of the year on the soul music front.

    Here’s what else comes out tomorrow:

    Mos Def The Ecstatic– After wowing us ten years ago with “Black on Both Sides”, Mos confused us with the overreaching “The New Danger” and then completely threw us off with a deliberate throwaway album in “Tru3 Magic”, an album so lazily put together it didn’t even have a cover. Now off the Geffen label and on Downtown Records (home of Gnarls Barkley, among others), Mighty Mos is back with an album that will hopefully knock the bad taste of the last couple of records out of listener’s mouths. Early reviews are promising.

    Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D.– On the other side of the hip-hop coin are the Black Eyed Peas. My distaste for them is legendary, but what I find more striking is the fact that their new song “Boom Boom Pow” has been the #1 song in the country for the past eight weeks and I have not heard the song ONCE. I’m sure the BEP will sell kajillions of records without my support anyway.

    Sonic Youth The Eternal– After nearly two decades in the MCA/Geffen family, New York alternative legends Sonic Youth are back on an indie label for “The Eternal”. These guys (and girl) have a pretty strong cult following, and since they’re not gonna make a pop breakthrough anytime soon, I don’t think it matters *what* label they’re on. They’re gonna sell what they’re gonna sell anyway.

    Pleasure P. The Introduction of Marcus Cooper– Pleasure P is the former lead voice of raunchy R&B outfit Pretty Ricky, and this is his solo debut. “Boyfriend #2” has already hit the Top 5 on the R&B charts, and the big production guns were definitely brought out for this release, including Cool & Dre, Ne-Yo and Keith Sweat. You’d think that a lot of these groups would stay together longer. It’s not like anyone’s leaving an R&B group these days to have an awesome solo career. Anyone seen Slim from 112 lately? How about Sisqo?

    A full list of this week’s new releases can be found here.

  • Respect Due: Teena Marie

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    Of course blue-eyed soul existed before Teena Marie came onto the scene. After all, what the hell was Elvis other than a blue-eyed soul singer? That said, though, the singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist is one of the rare white artists to achieve near-constant R&B success while only making a couple of sporadic blips onto the pop chart (she’s hit the Top 40 twice in her career). Originally a protégé of Rick James, Teena has become a legend in her own right-and she just might have Diana Ross to thank for the kickoff to her career.

    Teena was signed to Motown in the late 1970s, but as legend has it, no one was able to come up with the right material for her. Rick heard her singing and playing piano in a Motown rehearsal room and immediately signed up to work with the young upstart. Rick had at the time been working on material for Diana Ross. When Miss Ross rejected the material (which was far more funky and risqué than Diana would ever allow her to be), Rick gave the material to Teena. “I’m a Sucker for Your Love” became a Top 10 R&B hit in 1978 and started a decade-long run of soul hits.

    Teena’s voice was alternately seductive and rambunctious. Over the next few years, she scored hit singles with disco jams (“Behind the Groove” and “I Need Your Lovin’”), proto rap (“Square Biz”), steamy slow jams (“Fire & Desire”, the classic duet with mentor/lover James), and even stuck a toe in genres ranging from Latin music (“Portuguese Love”) and rock (1981’s “Revolution”-inspired by the murder of John Lennon’s murder). The album featuring the latter two songs, “It Must Be Magic”, became the biggest of her career, soaring to #2 on the R&B albums chart and staying there (ironically, behind Rick’s “Street Songs” album) for 4 months.

    Unfortunately, trouble loomed right around the corner. After “It Must Be Magic”’s success, Teena started thinking her money was funny and sued Motown, an action that took her out of commission for 2 years. After returning on Epic Records with 1983’s “Robbery”, she spent the rest of the 80s as a near-constant on the R&B charts with hits like “Lovergirl” (her only Top 10 pop hit) and the #1 smash “Ooh La La La”. Marie also recorded the rock/funk classic “Emerald City”, an album that was unjustly ignored upon it’s release and is now looked on as sort of an unsung classic amongst folks who like their soul music to have a little bit of rock ‘n roll edge.

    Teena then faded from view, only releasing two albums in the Nineties (including the very rare “Passion Play”, released independently). However, anyone who counted her out was very wrong, as her comeback album, 2003’s “La Dona”, became the highest-charting album of her career, spawned two hit singles, earned a Grammy nomination, and went Gold, sticking Teena straight in the middle of a list of 70s and 80s soul icons who’d made some of the best music of their career long after they’d been counted out professionally (Chaka Khan is another example). She’s released one album since (and has another one scheduled for release this summer), and is climbing the charts again with a duet, “Can’t Last a Day”, featuring Faith Evans, one of many singers today who have been influenced by Marie’s dramatic vocals and musical adventurousness.

    Lady T deserves props just by virtue of her staying power. She’s part of that small club of female R&B/funk artists (Patti, Chaka), who has managed to stay relevant for thirty years now. Extra props are due for being one of the few female artists to write, produce and perform her own material. Mostly, though, props are due to Teena just for being one bad ass chick.

  • First Listen: Teena Marie “Can’t Last a Day”

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    Underrated?  Teena Marie is underrated as all hell. Pop fans that do remember will know her for 1985’s “Lovergirl”, but the California-bred singer has been a near-constant fixture on the R&B charts for thirty years now.

    A protege of Rick James, Marie scored her first wave of hits on the Motown subsidiary Gordy in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Her buttery, emotional vocals created a couple of disco classics (“I Need Your Lovin’”, “Behind the Groove”), some memorable slow jams (“Portuguese Love”), a couple of scintillating duets with her mentor (“Fire & Desire”, “I’m a Sucker for Your Love”), and the funk classic “Square Biz”, which some of you younguns may recognize as the theme from the recent, Whoopi Goldberg-headed revival of “Hollywood Squares”. Leaving Motown for Epic, she ventured further into a Prince-like rock & soul fusion with the albums “Robbery”, “Starchild” and the criminally overlooked “Emerald City” before returning to traditional R&B with the #1 hit “Ooo La La La”. Her success waned a little after that, as she took the late Nineties off to raise a family, but she returned with 2004’s “La Dona”, a Grammy-nominated Gold album and an amazing comeback effort.

    Now signed to classic soul label Stax, Marie is back with “Can’t Last a Day”, a song that features Faith Evans, who has been M.I.A. for quite some time now. It’s a smooth soul groove, and a bit of a grower, although I’ll admit that Marie’s vocals at the beginning of the song sound a bit strained. Either way, it’s good to have Lady T back, and I’ve also included a classic of hers for those of you who aren’t hip to her yet. Enjoy and let us know what you think.