Legendary Interviews
Deniece Williams
Grammy Award-winning singer,songwriter and record producer who achieved success in the 1970s and 1980s. Williams, whose music has been influenced by Soul and Funk, is known for her hits such as "Free", "Silly", "Let's Hear It for the Boy", "It's Gonna Take a Miracle", and for her many vocal duets with Johnny Mathis.
In the 1970s, she became a backup vocalist for Stevie Wonder as part of "Wonderlove".
She left Wonder in 1975 and after signing to Columbia Records, she teamed up with two famed producers: Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, and his frequent collaborator, Charles Stepney. Her 1976 debut album entitled This Is Niecy was released. The single "Free" reached number 2 on the Black Singles chart, number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, and number 1 on the British Singles chart. The album also featured "Cause You Love Me Baby" (which charted separately on the R&B chart as the flip side of "Free") and "That's What Friends Are For". She also shared a number-1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with pop singer Johnny Mathis in 1978 with the duet "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late". The duet also topped the Black Singles and Adult Contemporary charts. Williams also topped the dance charts with her disco single "I've Got the Next Dance". Mathis and Williams also recorded the popular theme to the 1980s sitcom Family Ties, "Without Us".
Gregory Porter
At the start of 2010, the buzz about Los Angeles-born and now Brooklyn-based jazz/soul vocalist Gregory Porter was a strong, steady murmur, fueled by a growing crowd of fans who’d caught his performance in the Tony and Drama Desk Award-nominated Broadway hit, It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues, or his weekly stints at the Harlem club, St. Nick’s Pub.
By the end of 2012, with his second CD, Be Good, having earned a Grammy®- nomination for Best Traditional R&B Performance, the buzz had built to a roar, with the incredible accolades showered on Porter showing no sign of decreasing either in volume or enthusiasm. As the year drew to a close, Porter’s music topped an extraordinary number of “Best of 2012” lists in the US and the UK, including NPR’s “Best Music of 2012” and “100 Favorite Songs of 2012”; iTunes “Jazz Album of the Year”; and Soul Train’s “Top 10 Albums of 2012”. Be Good was also named Soul Tracks’ “Album of the Year.”
Kelli Sae
Internationally acclaimed vocalist Kelli Sae is not new to the limelight. And, she’s not blinded by it, either. As the former lead vocalist for global jazz/funk collectives, Incognito, Count Basic and Defunkt, she has seen the world and worked with world class musicians.| |It is a masala of sounds, cultures and influences that informs Kelli Sae’s eclectic musical instincts. Raised with the blood of a Puerto Rican mother, and African American father, and Native American grandparents, she says of her childhood soundscape, “It ranged from Spanish classics like Tito Puente and Celia Cruz to Barbara Streisand to James Brown and Motown. Then the Black Rock Coalition (BRC) became a major influence.”| |Put all of these instruments, rhythms and beats together and you have a sound that is strictly Kelli Sae. R&B purists will instantly hear the wet sensuality of Minnie Ripperton and the audacious sexuality of Marvin and The Isley Brothers. And one can’t miss the strong dose of electronica and Latin heat sprinkled throughout. It is the unmistakable Kelli Sae vibe that keeps her sound whimsical, fresh and boundless. Who else but a warrior would cover the 1967 Jefferson Airplane psychedelic classic, White Rabbit? “A brown girl doing rock,” that’s who.| | It’s the originality of the lyrics and the boundless energy that takes Pure to a new level in the disposable age of shameless imitation. She says, “I want to be the person who determines what my musical lifespan will be.”
