This week I saw a nice interview with Teddy Riley in a music magazine of 1992.  He talks about  Michael Jackson, Guy, {safm}Bobby Brown{/safm} and the keyboards, drum computers he used in various New Jack Swing productions. A nice interview to read. Especially if you like Teddy Riley.

 Mark

With "Love Or Physical", a splendid new album for Capitol Records, that perennial love duo Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson are definitely back in gear. After a couple of years absence, during which time the couple (who have been married now for over fourteen years) gave birth to a daughter, Asia, Nick and Val are feeling great about their new product, especially since the first single, I'll Be There For You" is giving them one of their biggest U.S. hits in years.

AFTER a long hiatus and a label change, Steve Arrington is back in the land of the recorded living! The ex-front man for Slave marks his switch from Atlantic/Cotillion to Manhattan with what most critics feel is his best and, even more importantly, his most commercial effort yet "jam Packed".

IN WHAT could justifiably be called their third incarnation, perennial favourites Kool & The Gang have undergone a pretty major personnel change. With the departure of James "J.T" Taylor, the group have drafted in not one, but THREE lead vocalists. As Robert "Kool" Bell, Dennis "D.T." Thomas and one of the group's new additions, Gary Brown reveal, the veritable musical institution is now in transition.
"With three different vocalists, we can pursue three different musical directions," says D.T. "We had our first decade which was a lot of musical experimentation with a lot of emphasis on a more instrumental sound and then the second phase which featured J.T.'s vocals and now we're taking both those elements and putting them together for this new cycle."   

I'd say my new album is all about getting to basics, back to square one, to what people want to hear from me." So says Stephanie Mills and the young lady's got a valid point, given that her current single "I Feel Good All Over" is truly leaping up the black music charts in the States and her album, "If I Were Your Woman" is turning into one of her biggest sellers.

Alexander O' Neal is undoubtedly one of our music's "Mr Nice Guy" contenders ? a man of enormous talent but whose feet remain firmly planted on the ground.
While stardom may have its attractions, Alexander is more concerned with being a good father to his children and bringing them up to fully exploit whatever talents they might possess but, at the same time, temper any resultant success with all due humility.

 WHEN you go to the windows of hell and look in, you begin to see the ugly reality of pain. And if you're fortunate enough to escape that gravitional pull out of there and come back into reality, then you can begin to philosophize on'what is real and what is not real."It gives you the strength to persevere — to go ahead — and I was fortunate enough to be drafted by The Spinners right away and that, within itself, did not allow me to
Former Spinner, U.S. marine and man about music, G.C. Cameron reflects, remembers and considers future activities. Scott Taylor tunes in wallow in the pity and the sorrow many of my comrades did who had time on their hands.  

"SO, WHAT'S in a name? Well, maybe that depends on what particular career you happen to be pursuing. What, I wonder, would have happened to Tina Turner had she pursued her professional career under her real name Annie Mae Bullock or Edwin Starr who entered this mortal coil in January 1942 under a Charles Hatcher monniker. Possibly the results would have remained the same, but you never do know. Is it First Circle or Full Circle?.

Rick was a musical prodigy, producing records when he was 16 years old instead of going to school. He and Harry Wayne Casey (KC) worked at TK Records in Miami, where they joined forces to write and record five #1 hits as KC and the Sunshine Band. Two white guys with a black rhythm section, they shaped the sound of what would become known as Disco. Here's how it happened. Read the full interview on Songfacts.com

Location: Just outside a hotel room in the Holiday Inn at Swiss Cottage. Wanda, the very beautiful female member of Raze, opens the door and greets me with a warm and glowing smile. This is going to be interesting, methinks, "Oh we'll be out in two minutes."

Let's go back to October 1986 to see what's happening in the music business those days. These Liners are from a populair magazine from the UK.

FINDING out that Atlantic Starr? whose music has marked them as a real staple in anyone's black music diet for the past 9 years ? have only ever had one gold album came as a shock to me when keyboardists Jonathan Lewis revealed that very information during the course of our recent interview, held in conjunction with the forthcoming release of the group's Warner Brothers' debut, "All In The Name Of Love". You could, as they say, have knocked me down with a pennyfeather ? or some kind of feather!