Category: jheri curl june
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Jheri Curl June: René & Angela’s “I’ll Be Good”
Musical duo René Moore and Angela Winbush had released three albums before they finally reached commercial success with 1985’s A Street Called Desire, which contained the hit single “I’ll Be Good.” Sadly, René and Angela were not good to each other, and ended their nine-year musical partnership in a mess of legal battles and physical abuse less than a…
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Jheri Curl June: The Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets”
Yesterday we talked about the O.G. Bootsy Collins‘ dabble in Jheri Curl. Today we’re looking at yet another Ohio group with a decades-spanning career, the Isley Brothers. Formed in 1954 as a gospel group, the Isley Brothers had been making hits since the ’60s, successfully adapting their sound to suit the changing musical scenes. By the ’80s, it…
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Jheri Curl June: Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s “Body Slam”
When it comes to jheri curl music, Bootsy Collins probably isn’t the first name that comes to anyone’s mind. In fact, he and the rest of the Parliament–Funkadelic cohort were practically the antithesis of the Jheri-Curl ethos: their aesthetic was gritty, not glossy; psychedelic posters and underground comix, not neon and Patrick Nagel; weed and…
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Jheri Curl June Special: L.A. Reid
If you’re a regular Jheri Curl June reader, then you should already know that the first week of June holds special signifance in jheri curl music history. As we noted back in our very first Jheri Curl June Special of 2014, Prince’s birthday falls at the end of the week, on June 7. Just a…
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Jheri Curl June: Lakeside’s “Turn the Music Up”
Best known for their 1980 pop-funk hit “Fantastic Voyage,” Dayton, Ohio’s Lakeside were full-blown Jheri Curl by the release of 1983’s Untouchables, which included the single “Turn the Music Up.” There was even a music video expanding on the theme of the album artwork: members of Lakeside as 1920s Chicago gangsters, complete with tommy guns, in a speakeasy/disco…
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Jheri Curl June: Ebonee Webb’s “Something About You”
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Prince must have flattered as hell by Memphis, Tennessee’s Ebonee Webb. Obviously, more than one artist of the jheri-curl persuasion has made a career out of jacking His Royal Badness’ high-heeled swagger, but this 1981 gem is truly uncanny: from the main riff–a straight rip of the Purple One’s…
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Jheri Curl June: Skyy’s “Call Me”
The Brooklyn-based funk/boogie octet Skyy formed in the mid-1970s and had three albums under their belt–each titled with a play on the band’s name–before their fourth album, Skyy Line, was released in 1981. “Call Me,” their biggest hit on the album, helped it reach gold status in the U.S., and continues to be a mainstay R&B…
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Jheri Curl June: Calloway’s “I Wanna Be Rich”
Well, folks, they say all good things must come to an end, and sadly, that applies to Jheri Curl June as well. But we want to go out on a high note, and so here’s one of my favorite late-period jheri curl tracks: Calloway’s “I Wanna Be Rich.” Calloway was of course the solo–or, erm,…
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Jheri Curl June: The Brothers Johnson’s “Kick it to the Curb”
1988’s Kickin‘ was an attempted comeback for the Brothers Johnson after a four-year hiatus during which co-founders and real-life brothers George and Louis Johnson pursued solo projects. Unfortunately, the album and singles failed to make a mark on the charts, a far cry from the Brothers’ previous platinum album sales throughout the late ’70s. Certainly, Kickin’…