You may be forgiven if you think 'Deja' has a sort of familiar ring.
The name may be new, but the duo boast a partnership spanning more than
ten years. And though the name alludes to something we've seen before,
Curt Jones and Starleanna Young are looking forward to the future, not
back to the past. Dropping the name Aurra is a positive move to
exorcise ghosts from the past, and start afresh with a whole new sound.
The phone rings at exactly 2:30pm on a sunny L.A. afternoon, and for any interview to begin precisely on time is, to say the least, unusual. On the other end of the line is Reginald McArthur, lead singer of The Controllers, the Alabama-based group whose recording career began in 1975 with the ever-soulful "Somebody's Gotta Win, Somebody's Gotta Lose".
If you've been a funk lover for at least ten years, you will no doubt remember George and Louis as the two brothers who got you out on the dance floor with a string of hits for A&M that included "I'll Be Good To You", "Get The Funk Out My Face", "Ain't We Funkin' Now", "Stomp!" and "Light Up The Night".
IF
predictions were my line, Motown's newest signing Stacy Lattisaw could,
in time, become a serious threat to the likes of Teena Marie and Janet
Jackson. She was, to all intents and purposes, quite a surprising
addition to the Motown family because prior to this, very little had
been heard about the nineteen year old singer. With "Nail It To The
Wall" showing healthy signs of becoming a hit, Stacy's debut album
"Take Me All The Way" is set for UK release next month - and what a
stunner that is too! However, before getting to that, a few facts and
figures.
You know, it's been fourteen
years since "If Loving You Is Wrong" and something like nine years
since we last had an album from Luther Ingram.
And yet, after one listen to Luther's new album (rather unimaginatively
tagged "Luther Ingram"), it's as if the crooner has never been away.
But he has!
To say Freddie Jackson is at the cross roads of his career would be something of an understatement. As far as cross roads go, Freddie's reached his spaghetti junction .. . in the rush hour! A slew of silky smooth hits in the eighties, kick started with undoubtedly his best collection to date, the two million selling "Rock Me Tonight" in '85, which of course, contained the monstrous title track along with the likes of "Calling" and "You Are My Lady", has, over the course of nine years and five albums gradually slowed down along with record sales. As the era for the smooth candlelight and champagne crooners in the '80's has given way for the riff happy, baggy jeans, bandana and Timberland hip-hop/soul homies in the '90's, naturally many of the older guard have been left concerned with the change of pace of their careers.
HOW time flies! Do you realise that it's been two years since the last
Mtume album, "You, Me And He"? On the other hand it probably has taken
the gifted one that amount of time to really create his just-released
"Theater Of The Mind" concept album ? a veritable musical masterpiece!
"Not quite," he smiles. "But it took more than seven months of working
fifteen-sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, it got to the
point where I built myself a little apartment above the studio!