Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the passing of music’s most promising songstress, Aaliyah Dana Haughton.  10 years ago, as a 15 year old randomly flipping through the TV channels, I saw breaking news on CNN that Aaliyah and several others were involved in a fatal plane crash in the Bahamas.  She was only 22 years old. 

To say she was on the brink of a promising career is putting it lightly.  Not only did she wow many with her angelic vocals, smooth dance moves, and trend-setting videos, she was also a talented actress.  She starred in Romeo Must Die, an urban adaptation of Romeo and Juliet aside DMX and Jet Li, in 2000 and Queen of the Damned in 2002 (released posthumously).  She was expected to act in the Matrix films as well. 

Whenever Aug. 25 rolls around, I often wonder what she would be doing today.  Still acting?  Still a princess on the charts?  Would she be the Beyonce before Beyonce?  Would she have married Dame Dash?  Often it is said that artists who die too soon had the world in their hands, the brightest future ahead of them.  For Aaliyah, this is true.  Her music is still leaps and bounds above most artists today and her style was always relatable, classy, sexy, and simplistic.  She remains an inspirtation for young girls and women, in music and out.  RIP.

peepmychi:

Aaliyah - I Miss You (R.I.P.)

In memory of Aaliyah i had to post this video.

In honor of breast cancer awareness month, October’s Pure Inspiration artist is the incomparable Minnie Riperton who died of the cancer on July 12, 1979.  Best known for her classic song Loving You and her ability to hit high notes without effort, Minnie’s musical career began when in 1961 when she signed with the legendary Chess Records in her hometown of Chicago as a member of the girl group The Gems.   Although the group would dissolve, Minnie sang background on records for greats such as Etta James and The Dells.  She also released a single, under an alias, called Lonely Girl. 

In the late sixties, Minnie used her 5-octave range as the lead singer for psychedelic/soul band Rotary Connection, enjoying some underground success.  During this time, she also released her debut album, Come To My Garden.  Unfortunately, the record did not gain much attention. In 1971 after Rotary Connection disbanded, Minnie went on tour with Stevie Wonder as a background singer.  It was Mr. Wonder himself who co-produced, with Minnie’s husband and writing partner Richard Rudolph, her next album Perfect Angel which contained Loving You and the featured song Reasons. 

Minnie’s following albums would not have the same success as Perfect Angel, but would produce radio favorites such as Memory Lane and Inside My Love.  After learning of her breast cancer diagnosis, Minnie continued to make music, perform, and became the spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society.  She was a wife, a mother to 2 children (Marc and Maya), a sister, a daughter, and all around loving and caring person.  Her talent is unmatched and her courage to fight a disease that was relatively new at the time of her diagnosis is truly inspiring. 

Easily, one of her more known songs could be have been chosen to place on the blog, but the lyrics to Reasons are perfect to describe not only Minnie Riperton’s life but every artist’s life.  Rest in Peace Minnie Julia Riperton.

Photos via Google.  Info via ArtistDirect.com.  Song downloaded from Amazon.com.

PURE INSPIRATION: CURTIS MAYFIELD

Hello good people, its been a minute!  As we are preparing for our first show of The Broken Record Concert Series (September 20 at Eyedrum in Atlanta, get your tickets to the right ;-)), we have failed to neglect the very entity that is the reason for the show in the first place, our handy, dandy blog!  To all the artists that have submitted music, we apologize.  You will be posted soon and very soon.

The past few weeks have been a hot mess yet so rewarding with many lessons learned.  Trying to plan a GREAT show with 1/3 of the team 13 driving hours, 4 state lines, and 1 time zone away (hi my name is Ms. Cook) was the first kick in the pants.  Line up changes, promo complications, full time job frustrations, and scheduling conflicts have gotten these ladies in all types of moods but we are pushing on.  Which is why Curtis Mayfield HAD to be this month’s PURE INSPIRATION artist.

His song, Move On Up, is not only one of the funkiest tracks every created but it is very inspiring, created at a time when this country was going through major changes (not unlike it is today).  This man’s whole catalog is inspiring, given that he is a master of many instruments - guitar, bass, piano, sax, and drums - and has either produced, written, composed or arranged music for some of the greatest blaxploitation and classic black movie soundtracks in the 70s.  Even after a paralyzing accident in 1990, the man continued to work, writing and recording the album New World Order.

Move On Up reminds you to do just that, move the hell on up!  When frustrations set in and things just aint going your way, when you feel youve gotten in way over your head or youve been pushed against the wall, “just move on up/ towards your destination.”

Isley Brothers (featuring Marvin Isley)

Isley Brothers are one of my all time favorite groups so I was saddened to find out that Marvin Isley, the bassist, passed a couple days ago.  Yet again, its Black Music Month and no one can deny the affect that the Isleys have had, creating hits since the 1950s.  R.I.P.

The Tempations (featuring Ali-Ollie Woodson)

Its Black Music Month.  While this is a time to reflect on the great artists and sounds that are “Black” Music, many are mourning the loss of some greats.  On June 1st, Ali-Ollie Woodson died from cancer.  He’s known for being the replacement of original member Dennis Edwards and for singing the lead of Treat Her Like A Lady.  R.I.P.

Video via YouTube.com

Lena Horne - 1917 to 2010

“I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

The music, movie, and Broadway world lost a very special source of Pure Inspiration yesterday.  The pioneering, ground-breaking, and status quo shaking Lena Horne passed Sunday, May 9.  Shes known for her singing and acting, but more than anything shes known as a symbol of both believing in and standing up for yourself.  The featured song is If You Believe from The Wiz, the 1978 Wizard of Oz adaption is which she played Glinda the Good Witch.

“Stormy Weather” was Lena Horne’s signature song as well as a chillingly apt metaphor for her career. Long celebrated for her striking beauty and silky voice, she overcame profound racism on her way to becoming one of the best-known African American performers in the country.

At MGM, she had a seven-year contract in the 1940s when no other African American had such long-term deals. But her movie scenes were filmed so they could be easily excised for release in the Jim Crow South.

As a singer in the 1950s, Horne often performed for white audiences in supper clubs then cursed the audience under her breath as she took her bows, her biographer wrote last year.

The glamorous Horne would go on to be “one of the legendary divas of popular music,” jazz critic Don Heckman wrote in The Times in 1997, with a voice that almost caressed “with its warm timbre and seductive drawl,”

She made “in-roads into a world that had never before been explored by African American women, and she did it on her own terms,” Grammy-winning producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. He called her “one of the great artistic icons of the 20th century.”

To help out her family during the Depression, Horne got a job as a 16-year-old chorus girl in 1933 at the fabled Cotton Club in Harlem. She went on to have a career that included film, television, Grammy-winning records, a one-woman Broadway show and untold nightclub appearances.

As a singer, she “belonged in the pantheon of great female artists” that includes Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughanand Carmen McRae, Heckman wrote in 1997.

Horne, then 80 and cutting a new album, took a different view.

“Oh, please,” she told the writer. “I’m really not Miss Pretentious. I’m just a survivor. Just being myself.” (article by Dennic McLellan & Valerie J. Nelson of LA Times, via Chicago Tribune)

Click HERE to read the full article

Keith “Guru” Elam of Gang Starr - 1966 to 2010

*This is long over due, please forgive me.*  At a time when Hip Hop has so many facets, some arguably quite ugly, it was very sad to learn that Guru of Gang Starr passed in April of this year.  Without a doubt, he upheld the standards of Hip Hop, always looking to the past for his inspiration while working to create his own style, a fusion of jazz and Hip Hop.  Guru is Pure Inspiration for his contribution to not only Hip Hop but music as a whole.

 Rapper/composer Guru (real name Keith Elam) first rose to prominence as the “lyrical half” of the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, one of the first outfits that attempted to fuse jazz with rap. After three albums by Gang Starr hit record store shelves (1989’s No More Mr. Nice Guy, 1991’s Step in the Arena, and 1992’s Daily Operation), Guru launched his own solo career, issuing Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1 in 1993. The album featured guest appearances by the likes of Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd, and N’Dea Davenport of the Brand New Heavies, and was followed up two years later by a sophomore solo outing, Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality, which again featured a variety of special guests (including Ramsey Lewis, Branford Marsalis, and members of Jamiroquai).

Despite his solo career, Guru remained true to Gang Starr as well, continuing to contribute to further albums such as 1994’s Hard to Earn and 1998’s Moment of Truth. In 2000, five years after his second solo outing appeared, Streetsoul (the third in the Jazzmatazz series) was issued, again featuring a stellar cast of supporting characters: Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes, the Roots, Erykah Badu, and Macy Gray. Wasting little time, Guru returned directly to the recording studio, issuing a follow-up one year later, Baldhead Slick & da Click. It took four years for the next Guru release, Version 7.0: The Street Scriptures, to come out, the first on his new label, 7 Grand Records, with beats by Solar (who became a vital force on 7 Grand’s subsequent releases). The MC used the same producer for his next installment of Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4, which, as always, included a number of guest vocalists and instrumentalists and was released in the summer of 2007.

In addition to the aforementioned artists, Guru has collaborated with some of rap music’s best-known producers, including fellow Gang Starr member DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Alchemist, Ayatollah, and DJ Spinna, as well as Ice-T, Naughty by Nature’s Treach, Killah Priest, and Ed O.G. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide (via Billboard.com)

William DeVaughn

A Pure Inspiration artist is one who has created classic material, resulting in an influence that can be felt through many generations.  The first Pure Inspiration artist featured on The Broken Record is William DeVaughn.  I have always loved this song because it reminds you that, even though you dont have what someone else might, you still have to keep pushing, and always remember to “be thankful for what you got”.  Enjoy and be inspired!

Singer/songwriter/guitarist William DeVaughn had a million-seller the first time out with his inspiring “Be Thankful for What You Got.” Those who first heard the smooth track thought it was a new record from Curtis Mayfield. DeVaughn’s high tenor does bear some resemblance to Mayfield’s and the simple, encouraging lyrics were similar to the kind found in the catalog of the Impressions leader. “Be Thankful for What You Got” also found its way onto the playlist of some gospel radio programs. One of the lyrics: “Diamond in the back / sunroof top / digging the scene with a gangster lean” became a catchphrase and appeared in numerous rap/hip hop records of the ’90s.

The Washington, D.C. native was working for the government when he paid $900 for a recording session at Philadelphia’s Omega Sound Inc. (basically a “vanity record” operation). Usually the results of such efforts are anything but star-making, but Omega featured the services of MFSB’s main rhythm section (guitarist Norman Harris, drummer Earl Young, bassist Ron Baker, and vibist Vince Montana). Omega vice-president Frank Fioravanti was impressed with the record and began shopping it around to various labels.

Finally issued on Wes Farrell’s Roxbury imprint and produced by Frank Fioravanti and arranger John Davis, “Be Thankful for What You Got” sold nearly two million copies, gliding up to the top of the R&B charts and number four pop in spring 1974. The album of the same name had an almost religious tone (DeVaughn was a Jehovah’s Witness) and yielded several radio-aired LP tracks: “Give the Little Man a Great Big Hand” (the third single), “We Are His Children,” “Sing a Love Song,” and “You Can Do It.” The second single, “Blood Is Thicker Than Water,” made it to number ten R&B and number 43 pop in summer 1974. Akin to the post-heyday performances of a converted Al Green, DeVaughn preached to and admonished his audience from the stage. He lost interest in the music business not long after, though hed did remake “Be Thankful for What You Got” for TEC and charted again with the Top 40 R&B hit “Figures Can’t Calculate” in summer 1980 for the label.

- Ed Hogan, All Music Guide (via Launch.com)