Latest news with #LucyPearl
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Oakland '90s R&B group teases future biopic
En Vogue may be the next music legends to get the biopic treatment. The Oakland R&B group — currently made up of members Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron, Maxine Jones and Rhona Bennett — celebrated the 35th anniversary of its first album during an appearance on 'The Jennifer Hudson Show' last week and hinted at the possibility of a film adaptation of its career journey. 'Do you think there's a world where there would be an En Vogue biopic?' Hudson asked the singers during a rapid fire question segment of the episode, which aired Thursday, May 15. 'Yes,' Herron immediately responded, prompting the studio audience to erupt into cheers. 'That's a good question,' Ellis said with a laugh as the other members of the group flashed knowing smiles. Hudson then asked if there would be a role for her to act in the hypothetical film, to which Jones replied, 'Yes,' while her bandmates continued to giggle. En Vogue was formed in 1989 by songwriters Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. Ellis, Herron and Jones were founding members, and Bennett joined in 2003, replacing Dawn Robinson. Robinson departed the quartet in 1997, later joining the supergroup Lucy Pearl, led by Tony! Toni! Toné! frontman Raphael Saadiq, who also grew up in Oakland. She eventually launched a short-lived solo career. En Vogue rose to widespread fame in the 1990s with hit singles such as 'Free Your Mind,' 'My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)' and 'Hold On,' which the group performed on the show. After gathering around a piano for an acoustic rendition of 'Hold On,' which was En Vogue's first-ever single, Herron revealed that the song almost didn't get a release by Atlantic Records. 'The label didn't love it. They didn't think it was a radio song, but our producers fought for it to get released as a single. So the label decided to service radio without the a cappella,' she told Hudson, referring to the soulful intro of the song. Herron went on to explain that radio hosts somehow discovered the version with the a cappella intro portion that most fans know and love today, and it skyrocketed to success. Before the '90s R&B group sat down with Hudson, the four singers did a on-camera strut down the Spirit Tunnel as part of the talk show's pre-interview hallway tradition. These filmed hallway dances, shared to the show's social media accounts, are a signature feature where all guests make their entrance, greeted by staff members who line the walls and serenade them with various songs. This time, 'The Jennifer Hudson Show' team chose to sing 'En Vogue is here in the Spirit Tunnel' to the tune of the group's 1992 hit 'My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It).' The clip has since gone viral. All four members began grooving down the hallway, each in lightly colored pantsuits, before stunning the team by whipping out silver fans and striking a pose. They were met with cheers as they continued to shimmy along, waving their fans. In February, En Vogue was back in the national spotlight during the NBA All-Star Game, hosted at San Francisco's Chase Center. The singers performed alongside rappers E-40, Too Short and Saweetie as part of a tribute to the Bay Area. Saadiq was also in attendance, and delivered a pregame performance.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Musician Raphael Saadiq talks unique gigs on heels of 'Cowboy Carter' success
Raphael Saadiq, who has cemented his mark in the music industry over the past three decades, has a special year planned for his fans with the release of exclusive content and a new one-man show. "No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades of Hits" will run for only four nights, kicking off May 31 in New York before heading to Los Angeles on June 6 and his hometown of Oakland, California, on June 7 and June 8. "It'll be me singing sometimes, me playing some instruments, me talking, telling stories, talking about the past and talking about the present," Saadiq says. "We're just going to be in one place all together. It's going to be no phones. We're really going to be close and personal." Saadiq rose to fame in the '80s and '90s as the lead vocalist for the R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! In 1999, he formed another R&B group, Lucy Pearl, and released music with its members before eventually releasing five solo albums. The versatile music mogul has earned three Grammy Awards, received 20 additional nominations, and had his work recognized by both the Oscars and Golden Globes. This year he won a Grammy for album of the year for his work on Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter," on which he helped produce and write a number of songs. He also kicked off the year by performing at the NBA All-Star Game in Oakland and announcing the launch of his vinyl club. "The (past) year has been really successful. I have worked with some amazing people," Saadiq says. "Though maybe different than some, I've had a lot of years like this." View this post on Instagram A post shared by TONY! TONI! TONÉ! (@tonytonitoneofficial) As a producer, instrumentalist, composer and songwriter, he has written and produced for music legends while becoming one himself. Some of those artists include Beyoncé, the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Erykah Badu, Solange Knowles, D'Angelo and John Legend. His first one-man show will be held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem — an intentional choice. "There's so much seasoning left on the floor at the Apollo. When you walk on that floor, you have to understand the people who worked so hard — blood, sweat and tears — and the ancestors that touched that stage," Saadiq says. "I wanted to take some of that energy and then just bring it out. Every time I go to the Apollo, I feel that way. But to go back by myself, and as a one-man show, is monumental for me." Fans can expect his performance include his work from throughout the years. "It's not about the talent that I have and have been blessed with," Saadiq says. "I've been blessed to work with so many good people. So I'm taking little pieces of everybody as I can remember, and then sort of bring it to to the stage." Through his vinyl club, Saadiq is offering fans a rare glimpse into his back catalog. Those with a membership receive exclusive quarterly releases, including his most celebrated albums, new releases and more. "It's really giving me that outlet to talk to people who really love and enjoy music," he says. While he's no stranger to collaborative and solo success, Saadiq recognizes the uniqueness of his recent endeavors, including his collaboration with Beyoncé. In addition to being a songwriter on Beyoncé's Grammy-winning hit "Cuff It" from her 2022 album "Renaissance," he co-wrote and produced a number of songs from her eighth studio album, including "Texas Hold 'Em," "16 Carriages," "Bodyguard" and "Ameriican Requiem." He also played the instruments for multiple songs, including "Ya Ya" and "Just For Fun." "I think 'Cowboy Carter' just brought the perspective that Black people sang country music first. And (Beyoncé) brought a lot of people from the past and (present)... like Shaboozey, who's been already singing country music," Saadiq says. "It sort of gave them an outlet to get out to a bigger audience." Tickets are now available for Saadiq's upcoming shows on Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network's Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Raphael Saadiq talks about explosive year on heels of 'Cowboy Carter'
CBS News
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Alice Coltrane tribute tour comes to UC Theatre in Berkeley
The brainchild of noted hip-hop and soul producers Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, Jazz Is Dead presents a special tribute to spiritual jazz giant Alice Coltrane featuring her son Ravi Coltrane at the UC Theatre Saturday night. While they both had long successful careers prior to collaborating -- Muhammad as a member of iconic hip-hop act A Tribe Called Quest and super group Lucy Pearl, and multi-instrumentalist Younge for his production skills and film work -- the pair began a fruitful partnership that has included acclaimed soundtrack work for the Netflix show Luke Cage and recordings with their group the Midnight Hour for Younge's Linear Labs imprint. More recently, the pair launched its ambitious Jazz Is Dead project. Initially focusing on live concerts with such heavily-sampled luminaries as Roy Ayers and Lonnie Liston Smith, Jazz Is Dead has also brought some of those '70s jazz influences and inspirations into the studio to record full albums, including such giants as Black Jazz recording artists Doug and Jean Carn, saxophonist Gary Bartz, longtime Gil Scott-Heron collaborator Brian Jackson and Brazilian masters Azymuth, Marco Valle and João Donato as well as like-minded younger musicians like Los Angeles group Katalyst. In addition to the collective's popular ongoing concert series in Los Angeles, last summer they launched "Jazz Is Dead: The Tour" which played dates across the country with '70s jazz greats Jackson, Carn and Henry Franklin. While some earlier tours had a collaborative approach teaming seasoned jazz legends with a house ensemble, as well as tours with Brazilian legends Hermeto Pascoal, Arthur Verocai and Milton Nascimento and French jazz group Cortex among others. Jazz Is Dead brings this traveling tribute to spiritual jazz icon Alice Coltrane to the UC Theatre, one of three West Coast dates that the show is playing in February and March. Groundbreaking saxophonist John Coltrane -- who grew from playing with fellow trailblazers Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to leading his legendary quartet featuring volcanic drummer Elvin Jones and innovative pianist McCoy Tyner before embarking on more exploratory experiments like his spiritual hymn A Love Supreme and the collective improvisational opus Ascension -- had brought his wife Alice into his group in early 1966 to replace the departing Tyner. After John's untimely death the following year from liver cancer at age 40, Alice became not only the steward to her husband's recorded legacy, but established herself as visionary artist in her own right. Adding harp to her arsenal of instruments, the musician's 1968 debut A Monastic Trio paid tribute to her husband while mining similar spiritually minded territory. The musician would release a string of cosmic jazz recordings with members of his band including saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders, drummer Rasheid Ali and bassist Jimmy Garrison as well as other jazz luminaries like bassists Ron Carter and Charlie Haden and saxophonist Joe Henderson. Beginning with her groundbreaking 1970 album Journey to Satchidananda, Coltrane introduced Indian instrumentation and influences that would mark her music for the rest of her career. Coltrane shifted to organ as one of her main instruments on Universal Consciousness the following year while embracing increasingly complex orchestral arrangements. She would later collaborate with John Coltrane devotee Carlos Santana and record a trio of records for Warner Bros. before moving away from secular life and becoming the spiritual director for a Vedantic ashram in Southern California. However, she continued to record hypnotic spiritual music built around chanting, percussion, organ and synthesizer through the 1980s and '90s that were sold on cassette at the ashram. Coltrane returned to recording jazz and performing live in the early 2000s. She recorded and released Translinear Light with Ravi (who also produced the album) and his brother Oran in 2004, her first commercial release in over a quarter century. Two years later, she played a trio of concerts to mark what would have been her husband's 80th birthday, including one for the SF Jazz Festival with Ravi, Haden and drummer Roy Haynes. Sadly in the midst of renewed interest in her music, Alice Coltrane died of respiratory failure the following year at age 69. Some of her religious recordings would eventually be compiled and released by the Luaka Bop label in 2017. The material featured on World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda would expand the audience for some of her underappreciated later work. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in both John and Alice Coltrane between the 2017 documentary film Chasing Trane and a string of new, previously unreleased material: the studio recordings Blue World and Both Directions at Once for John Coltrane, as well as a lost live recording of "A Love Supreme" featuring his classic quartet augmented by Sanders, second bassist Donald Garrett and alto saxophonist Carlos Ward that was issued in 2021. Kirtan: Turiya Sings added to Alice Coltrane's legacy with it's solo voice and organ recordings from the early 1980s. Most of her discography from the '70s has been repressed on vinyl with Impulse recently releasing a stunning previously unheard live recording from a 1971 Carnegie Hall concert that includes Sanders, fellow sax icon Archie Shepp and dueling drummers drummers Ed Blackwell and Clifford Jarvis. For his part, Ravi Coltrane studied music at the California Institute of the Arts before embarking on a lengthy career as a sideman, touring with his father's drummer Elvin Jones in his group and playing with trumpeter Wallace Roney before an extended stint with alto saxophonist and M-Base Collective founder Steve Coleman. He also played with a wide range of luminaries including keyboard giants Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, Bay Area Latin guitar hero Carlos Santana, bassist Stanley Clarke, and sax greats Sanders and Branford Marsalis. He wouldn't issue his first album as a leader until the release of Moving Pictures in 1997. In 2004, Ravi and his He has also worked in the studio with another family member, and experimental music producer Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus Ravi Coltrane has paid tribute to his parents' music in the past, playing residencies at the SFJAZZ Center that included a performance of A Love Supreme on the album's 50th anniversary and revisiting their classic catalogs with a variety of collaborators. For this Jazz Is Dead tribute tour that stops at the UC Theatre on Saturday, Coltrane is joined by rising young harp player Brandee Younger -- who has earned acclaim with her modern take on the jazz harp styles of Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, who Younger paid tribute to with her 2023 album Brand New Life -- Tel Aviv-born piano prodigy Gadi Lehavi and Bay Area drummer Elé Howell (both regular Ravi Coltrane collaborators), bassist Rashaan Carter and a special guest.
Los Angeles Times
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Raphael Saadiq on the stories behind 5 of his prettiest, funkiest, tuba-heaviest hits
Hanging out in Sacramento not long ago on a trip to see his mother, Raphael Saadiq dropped into a crowded barbershop for a haircut. 'They didn't know who I was for a sec, but they figured it out real quick,' says the 58-year-old musician: a crucial figure in R&B who's performed, written, produced or played on an intergenerational array of songs over the last four decades — sometimes on his own, sometimes with a group, sometimes for a star more famous (if rarely more talented) than he. 'They put on a playlist of my records, and eventually this guy asked me, 'What do you think about when you hear your records playing?'' he recounts. Saadiq sat with the question for a moment. 'What I realized is that they stood the test of time.' Born and raised in Oakland, Saadiq led the hit-making trio Tony! Toni! Toné in the 1980s and '90s, then formed an R&B supergroup, Lucy Pearl, before embarking on a solo career; in and among those gigs, he made records with D'Angelo, Bilal, Whitney Houston, the Isley Brothers, John Legend, Erykah Badu, Solange and Alicia Keys, among many others. This month he won his third Grammy Award for his work on Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter,' which was named album of the year, and on Sunday he'll perform a musical tribute to his native Bay Area before the NBA All-Star Game at San Francisco's Chase Center. Saadiq, who operates these days out of a studio in North Hollywood — and who mentors students at USC's Thornton School of Music as part of Dean Jason King's Creative Vanguard program — recently announced a subscription service called Vinyl Club through which he's reissuing material from his catalog, beginning with Lucy Pearl's self-titled 2000 debut. As he drove back to L.A. from his mom's place, he got on the phone to tell the stories behind five of his best-loved tunes. Formed by Saadiq, his brother D'Wayne Wiggins and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley, Tony! Toni! Toné bridged R&B's new jack swing and neo-soul eras. This sumptuous ballad reached No. 2 on Billboard's R&B chart in its edited form, though the song stretches to nearly 10 minutes on the trio's double-platinum 'Sons of Soul' LP. The thing that really made the song was Clare Fischer, the string composer. I knew Clare from the Rufus and Chaka Khan records and the Prince records, and I'd always wanted to use him. My thing was that if I ever got any money and if I found the right piece, I was gonna call Clare Fischer. He brought a sweetness that took the record to a different level — a level that made it feel like an anniversary. It felt so good to me that I said, 'You know what? This song can't be three minutes long — it has to be 10 minutes on the record.' I remember mixing it at the Record Factory in New York. When I walked out of the studio early in the morning, I ran into Nile Rodgers — he was bringing his Porsche down in the elevator. It was raining, and he looked at me and said, 'Hey man, you need a ride?' I love Nile Rodgers, especially as a kid. I was really into Chic and Bernard Edwards. So to see him that morning and just watch him take off in his Porsche in the rain — I was like, 'Wow, this s—'s crazy.' The 'Anniversary' music video is built around a live performance scene. Was it important to the band to show that you all played instruments?It's all we knew, so it wasn't even a thing. We never went anywhere without our instruments. It's like you're going outside to play with your friend — are you gonna bring your arm with you? Your first two Grammy nominations were for 'Anniversary': best R&B song and best R&B performance by a duo or was a little shocking. Watching the Grammys as a kid, the people that won everything was Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. But even when we got nominated for the Soul Train Awards, we always lost. I remember we had like five nominations at the Soul Train Awards with 'Sons of Soul.' I'm thinking we gotta win something on the concept, and we didn't win anything. [The producer] Thom Bell heard I was a little bummed, and he asked somebody to send me a message. He said, 'Tell him that when the IRS comes to take your house, they leave those awards on the mantelpiece.' The Tonys reunited for a tour in 2023. How'd 'Anniversary' go over every night?It was the most beautiful thing ever. What I loved about it is that people were enjoying each other. I took away the phones on the tour — it was a no-phones tour. And people were a little upset. But I wanted people to experience what I experienced when I went to see Parliament-Funkadelic or Earth, Wind & Fire or the O'Jays. My recall from those shows is what I saw. I was looking dead at every musician, everything they did. At the Tony shows, people were dancing, hugging, kissing, then looking at us — and without a phone in front of their face. After Tony! Toni! Toné! broke up in 1997, Saadiq put together a new trio with En Vogue's Dawn Robinson and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest. I didn't want to be a solo act — I still wanted to be in a band. It's like Bruno [Mars]. Bruno is a solo act, but he's really in a band. He's a modern Kool & the Gang to me. So I called people that were from popular groups before, sort of like the Traveling Wilburys, right? I don't like the term 'supergroup,' but that's what they say. Nobody who's ever been in a supergroup likes the term. What's so bad about it?It just sounds super-corny — although somewhere in the back of our mind we probably were like, We are super. You, Dawn and Ali Shaheed are credited as songwriters across the Lucy Pearl album. Did the collaboration click right away?Well, some people we just gave credit to that didn't write any songs. But for 'Dance Tonight,' I have to credit the basis of the music to Ali Shaheed. He came to me and he played the chords to 'Dance Tonight,' and it sounded so good. He couldn't play it in time, but I could hear the chords. I always get a kick out of the lyric where you say, 'Let's purchase two new Bentleys / I know that it looks trendy.'That was a silly line to make silly people listen to the song. I've never owned a Bentley in my life. Lucy Pearl didn't last long. Looking back, did the group accomplish what you'd hoped?I wish that we could have stayed together a little longer. We tried. I think maybe we were out for six months after the album, but at the end of the tour it was pretty much over. Dawn wanted to do a solo record. Saadiq co-produced D'Angelo's 1996 hit 'Lady' then re-teamed with him for this Grammy-winning highlight from the singer's 2000 masterpiece, 'Voodoo.' Deeply indebted to the ornate soul-funk balladry of Prince — for whom Saadiq had played bass on the road in the mid-'80s — 'Untitled' spawned an instant-classic video starring an extremely muscular (and seemingly naked) D'Angelo. According to the internet, it's just you and D'Angelo playing the true. What happened was I was walking through the Village, beautiful summer day outside, and I wanted to get something to smoke on while I'm enjoying New York. I went to Electric Lady [Studios], knocked on the door: Lemme stop and see if I can grab a joint from this dude real quick. D came to the door himself. Usually you'd have a second engineer or somebody run up and open it. But he opened the door. I'm like, 'You got a joint?' He's like, 'Yeah, I got a joint — but come in, let's write a song!' Why was D'Angelo the guy to get some weed from?Because we vibe like that. When you're in the studio, you're gonna be in there all night, so you have to have the good food, the good smoke, because you're not leaving. You're gonna be in there creating. So I walked in and he started playing piano. He's an amazing piano player — plays with a different texture than anybody I know. I played bass, then he played something on keyboards and I played guitar while we had this drumbeat going. I'm a very spiritual person, so I'll just say that it's like we were placed together for that moment — for that song. You wrote the song and cut it all in that one day?Except his vocals. D cuts his vocals on his own. How'd you dial in your guitar tone?Wasn't no planning. It wasn't even my guitar — it was just some guitar that was there, and I picked it up and played it and those lines came out. We were basically trying to impress each other. The lyric is pretty filthy, which you don't necessarily catch because of how delicately D'Angelo is using his falsetto. You have to pay close attention.D is a bad boy. But it's no different than a song in the '60s, where they're saying, 'I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour / That's when my love comes tumbling down.' You just have to be clever with the pen. Why'd you call it 'Untitled'?It became 'Untitled' because of the way it ends. The tape ran out as we were playing. At the time we were recording on [Digital Audio Tape], and when a song's not done, it says 'Untitled' on the DAT. We didn't really get a chance to finish the ending, so I was like, 'You should just leave it like that.' You ever think about how the song might have ended if the two of you had gone back and finished it?Nah. We made the director's cut. I do always wonder when I'm watching 'Scarface,' when Al Pacino is about to get shot up on the balcony, what if he could just run around and kill the dude? But I ain't never gonna see that. And you ain't never gonna hear a different ending. Despite his initial reluctance to go solo, Saadiq did just that in 2002 with 'Instant Vintage.' This single from the LP repurposed the hypnotic groove from Dr. Dre's 'Still D.R.E.,' which had come out three years earlier. I just got tired of putting my efforts into other people. I've found my career to be like football, right? I'm a quarterback and I have an offensive line that's supposed to be blocking for me. But I feel like my team always turned around and tackled me [laughs]. So I was like, You know what? I might as well go ahead and just play golf. Lemme just hold the club and hit the ball myself. That's how I became a solo artist. How did the riff from 'Still D.R.E.' end up in 'Still Ray'?The repetition of the triad, I wanted to take that and turn this hard Dr. Dre song into a beautiful lullaby — to grab everybody's ears and then go, All right, but I'm not really about to go into the gunfight. I'm gonna make a right here and go into this florist instead. I suppose the title just presented name is Dre and my name is Ray. It's not even nothing I thought about. I'm just full of jokes. Very prominent tuba in this song.I love Mexican music, and when I'm driving, I always listen to the tuba. So I was like, Man, we need a tuba on this. My friend Kelvin Wooten who played the piano on 'Still Ray,' he plays tuba too. I told him to go grab a tuba, and we just went with it. At the time, the label was saying, 'This is not a single — it doesn't have a hook.' I kept telling them, 'The tuba is the hook.' Saadiq is credited as a writer and producer on several tracks from 'Cowboy Carter,' including this slinky, '70s-style soft-rock jam that features him on guitar, piano, bass and keyboard. It wasn't originally for Beyoncé — it was for me. I put this groove together, kind of a Memphis slash Fleetwood Mac slash 'Pretty Woman,' Roy Orbison type of vibe. I had it in my folder, and I was playing stuff for Beyoncé. She had me going through songs and ideas. I didn't really want to play ideas because they weren't worked out all the way, but she didn't care. She was like, 'Just play whatever.' So I played a little bit of it on accident, and she's like, 'Go back, go back — what are you doing with that?' I honestly couldn't believe she picked it. I just didn't see it. Then when she sang it, she did some stuff vocally that completely matched the era of what I was doing but that I would never have done. She took it and made it her own thing. I had a small guitar solo in it, but she wanted the solo to be longer. She said, 'I think we can go harder in the paint.' I was like, 'Oh, damn.' I would have called my really good friend Eric Gales to play the solo, but he was on tour. And we were moving so fast that I didn't have time to call anybody else. So I had to go back in the room and work out a solo. Are guitar solos making a comeback? There's another good one in Chappell Roan's 'Pink Pony Club.'I'm waiting for the George Michael saxophone solo to come back.
