Similar to Monday’s Jheri Curl June inductee, Pennye Ford, Vesta Williams also began her career as a backup and session singer for various artists, including Chaka Khan. Her 1986 solo debut, Vesta, included her first Top 10 R&B hit: “Once Bitten Twice Shy”–which, regrettably, is not an R&B version of the Ian Hunter song, later covered by Great White. But, that would be amazing.
Anyway, we’ll be back tomorrow with more from the ladies of Jheri Curl Music–playlists below!
We’ve talked a fair amount on this blog about the, ahem, interesting similarities between Rick James’ Mary Jane Girls and Prince’s Vanity 6: a concept James always maintained he came up with first, only for the Paisley Bandit to swoop in and summarily bite it. But if other stories are to be believed, Prince was actually biting from someone much closer to home: his first bass player and one-time surrogate brother, André Cymone.
The rocky relationship between Prince and Cymone is another thing we’ve discussed in Jheri Curl Junes past, and it should be noted that Prince had a history of “borrowing” from his friend and collaborator: “Do Me, Baby,” among other early songs, was by all accounts an André Cymone joint. So it wasn’t exactly a shock to hear that Prince got the idea for a girl group after catching wind of Cymone’s own side project, creatively named “the Girls.” At some point, according to the excellent (and sadly out of print) biography Dance Music Sex Romance, André and Prince even combined their ideas for the group, then known as “the Hookers”; André, however, walked away after realizing that Prince wanted him to do the work without taking any of the credit. And the rest was history: the Hookers became Vanity 6, who became Apollonia 6, and Cymone’s “Girls” released their debut album in 1984, to commercial and critical indifference.
Penny Ford (a.k.a. Pennye Ford, for reasons unknown) began her musical career as a backup singer for Zapp in 1979 and went on to become a session singer at Motown in Los Angeles before signing to Total Experience Records, home of Gap Band and Yarbrough & Peoples. So, needless to say, her Jheri Curl credentials were set when she embarked on her solo career in 1984. But, holy shit people… not even a résumé like that could prepare us for this video:
If anyone ever asks me what Jheri Curl June is all about, this is the video I will show them. The mirrors, the outfits, Penny’s unfaithful boyfriend is a blatant ripoff of the Kid in Purple Rain... But, most importantly, look at this fucking curl.
Just like we do every year, we’re dedicating one week this month to the women of Jheri Curl Music–see you tomorrow for more JCJ Ladies’ Week! Playlists below.
It didn’t take a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for this year’s Jheri Curl June podcast. Rick James may be the most important architect of the genre we call Jheri Curl Music who we hadn’t already commemorated with a long-term feature. He also has a hell of a story: one he told in not one, but two posthumous memoirs–2007’s Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Superfreak and 2014’s Glow–which makes him a perfect candidate for the Dystopian Book Club. A “habitual line-stepper” in both life and art, James was vital in bridging the gap between 1970s P-Funk and 1980s Jheri Curl; his later decline into drug addiction and imprisonment was unfortunate, but could only somewhat dampen his boundless talent and charisma. So join us on this most sacred of occasions as we celebrate Mr. Cold Blooded himself: a man whose artistic potential was the only thing bigger than his larger-than-life personality and appetites. Gimme some ganja!
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Kool & The Gang is yet another ’70s funk band that sustained themselves through the changing landscape of ’80s R&B with their ability to adapt to the times. I mean, just listen to anything off 1973’s Wild and Peaceful, and then consider that “Ladies’ Night” (which, by the way, will always be THE fucking jam) came out just six short years later. Of course, any group that lasts 30+ years will have some stylistic changes; but what is so surprising about Kool & The Gang is that they were initially a tight jazz/funk outfit. Anyone whose sole knowledge of Kool & The Gang is their disco late-’70s-funk-hit-turned-’90s-elementary-school-party-song “Celebration” will be confused as hell when they hear the group at their jazziest on Live at P.J’s. I mean, there’s a fucking flute on that album.
1984’s Emergency, meanwhile, proved that Kool & The Gang could definitely pull off Jheri Curl Music–as well as jheri curls on their heads–while also, in the video to “Fresh,” depicting one of the weirdest adaptations of Cinderella I’ve ever seen:
Like, I’m not sure why the step sisters are eating barbed wire burgers. I’m also not sure why the fairy godmother is a Marilyn Monroe lookalike who throws a grenade that turns into a party dress. But just the fact that Cinderella busts into the party and immediately strips down to her leotard and starts hip thrusting is enough to make this my favorite version of the fairy tale. It definitely has the best soundtrack.
Oh, and her heels have spurs on them. That IS fresh.
This Friday, we’ll be posting a special Jheri Curl June edition of our podcast series-within-a-series, Dystopian Book Club, on the memoirs of Mr. Rick James. It’s a fun conversation–after a year and a half, we’re finally hitting our stride as podcasters!–and I’m excited to unleash it upon an unsuspecting (/indifferent) Internet. But I also wanted to take this opportunity to cover in more detail a key moment from James’ career that we glossed over while recording the episode. I’m talking, of course, about his composition and production of Eddie Murphy’s 1985 single, “Party All the Time.”
Like most songs by actors-turned-“singers,” “Party All the Time” gets its fair share of scorn, and maybe some of it is deserved: objectively speaking, the world didn’t need a full-length album by the man who gave us “Buh-Weet Sings.” But there’s a reason one might actually hear “Party All the Time” on a bar jukebox or the radio–a risk one never encounters with the musical stylings of, say, Don Johnson or Seth MacFarlane. Simply put, it’s a catchy-ass piece of Jheri Curl pop–and for that, Rick James deserves 100% of our thanks.
Back in May when we did our Memorial Day podcast, I was sorely unaware of Junie Morrison’s music. Sure, I had heard the Ohio Players’ albums from the early ’70s, of which Junie played a seminal part; I had heard Funkadelic’s late ’70s music, particularly “(Not Just) Knee Deep” (I mean obviously, I’ve watched Good Burger enough times). But, while I was technically familiar with Junie’s contributions, up until about a month ago I couldn’t have told you who he was. Even after I heard Kanye’s “No More Parties in L.A.” Even after I heard Solange’s “Junie.” Even after I heard that he’d died earlier this year.
I like to think that I’ve made up for some lost time in the past month, however, because I’ve been unapologetically obsessed, and will spread the gospel of Walter “Junie” Morrison as much as possible. The man easily deserves as many accolades as Prince, and in many ways is very similar: Junie was a multi-instrumentalist who played every instrument on his solo albums; he joined the Ohio Players at only 16 years of age and was largely responsible for writing and arranging many of their earlier records. Matter of fact, after becoming familiar with Junie’s solo stuff from The Westbound Years, I can’t imagine Prince’s first two albums–much less his entire career–without Junie Morrison’s music.
Hell, Jheri Curl June as we know it would not exist without Junie. Give another listen to “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” with its triumphant synth line (one of Junie’s signature sounds), and tell me that is not a rudimentary form of Jheri Curl Music. Furthermore, Junie, along with yesterday’s JCJ inductee Stevie Wonder, predated Roger Troutman’s usage of the keyboard talkbox by several years. So, there you have it, folks: Junie Morrison is the unsung architect of our sacred Jheri Curl Music. Until now, that is.
It’s a well-known fact that most white music critics don’t “get” ’80s Stevie Wonder. And for a long time, I was no exception: I took as gospel the truism that it was all downhill for Stevie after Hotter Than July, and I levied what I considered to be the appropriate amount of scorn on his material from the era. You know that scene in High Fidelity where Barry throws the guy out of the store because he wants to buy “I Just Called to Say I Love You?” That was basically me.
But with age comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes a less snobby attitude toward popular culture. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” But I’m not too proud to say that I love another song from Wonder’s much-reviled 1984 soundtrack to The Woman in Red, “Love Light in Flight”–how could any self-respecting Jheri Curl fan not? Like last week’s song by Kashif, it’s a stellar example of the new subgenre I pulled out of my ass called “sophisticurl”: you can picture it being played at a yacht party, with discreetly jheri-curled attendees wearing Coogi sweaters and clinking their champagne glasses. It’s genteel, but indelibly funky: a vibe that Stevie Wonder nailed effortlessly in his middle years. And it doesn’t even require an appreciation of poorly-aged Gene Wilder comedies to enjoy!
See you tomorrow for more Jheri Curl June. Spotify and YouTube playlists below.
Last month, we recorded our annual Memorial Day podcast, a budding tradition in which we commemorate (and lightly mock) many of the important musical artists we’ve lost since the previous May. And this time, one of those artists was especially bittersweet: former B.T. Express keyboardist, producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and dope-moustache-haver Kashif. As I said on the podcast, he’s someone we’d wanted to spotlight for a long time–and we did, sort of, with our 2014 post on one of his finest productions, Evelyn “Champagne” King’s effervescent “Love Come Down.” But now that we’ve finally got around to covering his solo work, he’s no longer here to appreciate and/or be mildly offended by it.
Kashif’s music tends to lie on the smoother, more refined end of the JCM spectrum–call it sophisticurl. His 1984 album Send Me Your Love
We’ll be back next week with more Jheri Curl June–playlists below!
Kleeer had a rocky road to Jheri Curldom. Originally conceived in 1972 as the Jam Band, the backing band for the Choice Four, they later became their own entity, changed their name to Pipeline, and recorded the hard rock infused “Gypsy Rider.” After the single tanked, Pipeline transformed into the Universal Robot Group, under which they recorded and toured for two years. Finally, in 1978, they became a new entity yet again, Kleeer.
Similar to One Way, Kleeer released a consistent output of minor hits in the late ’70s and ’80s, but they were immortalized by being extensively sampled by G-Funk artists, like DJ Quik. “Tonight,” from their 1984 album Intimate Connection
We have one more day to go for Jheri Curl June this week–see you then! In the meantime, Spotify and YouTube playlists are below.