When we decided to expand the focus of Jheri Curl June last year to include cinema, I knew there were two films I absolutely had to write about: Purple Rain and Coming to America. As it turned out, I was only able to work the former into our schedule. This year, however, I’m making amends.
Coming to America
As we’ve mentioned in past Jheri Curl Junes, by the end of the 1980s jheri curl music had been overshadowed by fresher genres like hip-hop and New Jack Swing. Loose Ends’ 1988 hit “Watching You” is a perfect example: it’s still very much a Jheri Curl song, but the beat knocks harder and the production is less slick, favoring horns over synthesizers.
Indeed, the rise and fall of jheri curl music corresponds exactly with Loose Ends’ timeline. The musical trio of vocalist and guitarist Carl McIntosh, lead vocalist Jane Eugene, and keyboardist Steve Nichol formed in 1980, but by 1989 they chose to split up due to disagreements over the group’s musical direction. McIntosh did record a final album under the name “Loose Ends,” 1990’s Look How Long
So with that, we’ve once again reached the tragic, yet inevitable decline of the Jheri Curl Era. But the late ’80s weren’t all bad: check back tomorrow for our long-overdue post on one of the cornerstones of Jheri Curl Cinema, John Landis‘ 1988 Coming to America. And as always, check out our ever-growing Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump.
Probably the best thing about having a girlfriend whose mother is Black and lived through the 1980s is that I’m never short on jheri curl music recommendations. Just last week, in fact, Kia (via her mom) hipped me to a track I’d never heard before: the très-jheri 1986 single “(I’m a) Dreamer” by Italo-post-disco act the B.B. & Q. Band.
“B.B. & Q.” stands for “Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens,” but to be fair there probably should have been an extra “B.” in there–for Bologna, Italy, the home base of Franco-Italian svengali Jacques Petrus, who assembled the “band” from a crew of New York-based singers and session musicians to follow up on the success of his previous, Luther Vandross-fronted studio project, Change. In the U.S., at least, the B.B. & Q. Band never quite reached the heights of their predecessor; but “Dreamer” did hit #35 on the U.K. charts, and its parent album, 1985’s Genie
Unfortunately, however, it didn’t last: the B.B. & Q. Band dissolved in the most bizarre way possible in 1987, when Petrus was murdered under mysterious circumstances while on the run from tax evasion charges in the French West Indies. Somewhere, though, there’s a Tarantinoesque crime movie waiting to be made out of the life and death of Jacques Petrus. And fortunately, thanks to tracks like “Dreamer,” its soundtrack will be perfect.
Listen to “Dreamer,” and the rest of our Jh3ri Curl Jun3 selections thus far, on the Spotify and YouTube playlists below:
In many ways, Yarbrough & Peoples offer a much more pleasant male-female music partnership dynamic than earlier Jheri Curl June inductees René & Angela. Calvin Leon Yarbrough and Alisa Delois Peoples were childhood friends who eventually became a musical duo. After being discovered by the Gap Band and Lonnie Simmons, they recorded their best-known hit, “Don’t Stop the Music,” in 1980. They continued to record and tour as a duo until 1987, when they called it quits–to be married. That’s right: there were no bruised ribs or legal battles, and in fact Calvin and Alisa continue to write, produce, perform, and appear in musicals together. Isn’t that sweet?
One of Yarbrough & Peoples’ last singles would be “Guilty,” from the 1986 album of the same name
The music video is just over four minutes of pure camp, with Alisa Peoples working at a used car lot alongside two crooked used car salesmen with cigars and cowboy hats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wtPXdPyvrE
After she fails to dissuade a customer (Calvin Yarbrough) from buying a good car–probably because she was too mesmerized by that moustache, gap-tooth, and dimple triple threat–the shady cowboy hat salesmen come over and talk Yarbrough into buying a car that is a complete piece of shit by distracting him with cheerleaders…? Apparently titties and pom poms are enough to make this guy ignore the fact that there are visible cracks in the windshield, because he buys the car only to immediately realize his mistake when the engine doesn’t start and begins smoking. But, PLOT TWIST, Yarbrough is actually an undercover cop, and the “Guilty Bros” are arrested. Fair enough, but I still think that Yarbrough is guilty of being a moron for buying that car.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more great jheri curl music from the latter half of the ’80s. Spotify and YouTube playlists are below:
Well, folks, it’s our first-ever Jheri Curl June podcast–and before you ask, yes, we’re talking about Prince again. This time, though, we’re shedding light on a somewhat less-discussed side of his career: the series of (very) thinly-veiled side projects and ghost productions he released in the early-to-mid-1980s under various pseudonyms, most famously “Jamie Starr.” If you’re even an intermediate-level Prince fan, some of these records are essential listening; so settle in, turn up your headphones, and get ready to take a bite of our purple rock.
But first, a word of warning, as I’m afraid there’s a factual error in this one: I was speaking from memory in the section about Sheila E, and incorrectly stated that “Noon Rendezvous” began life as a Revolution outtake. It was actually co-written by Prince and Sheila for the Glamorous Life album; the Revolution just happened to cover it in concert. Oops! Anyway, I left that bit in because I still like the song, so just enjoy the music and try to ignore the fact that I’m blatantly lying to you. Finally, if you like this kind of content (with less inaccuracies), check out my new side hustle: dance / music / sex / romance, a chronological exploration of every (known) song in the Prince oeuvre, which I expect to be updating a couple times a week until it actually kills me.
(more…)Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In our upcoming podcast (posting Monday!) on the musical side projects of Prince, we discuss the weird kind of Stockholm Syndrome that seems to have gripped everyone who collaborated with the little guy. André Cymone, Morris Day, Vanity: all fought tooth and nail to get out from under Prince’s lacy-gloved iron fist; then, when they were finally free, they started making their own music–which sounded exactly like Prince. Wendy (Melvoin) and Lisa (Coleman), Prince’s right- and left-hand women in the Revolution, were no exception; and on “Satisfaction,” from their 1989 sophomore album Fruit at the Bottom
Coming out as it did at the beginning of a troubled era for His Royal Badness, “Satisfaction” has the distinction of sounding more like Prince than a lot of actual Prince songs from the same period. And, while its booming live drums and touches of acoustic piano and guitar (!) belie its origins as a post-jheri curl track, it still has enough vestigial Minneapolis electro-funk in it to qualify for this month’s festivities. Check it out below, along with a U.K. morning television interview–conducted, judging by their hairstyles, mere seconds after Wendy and Lisa had stuck their fingers in a light socket next to an exploding can of Aquanet–with a host who has no idea how lesbians work:
See you next week! Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump.
Samantha Fox began her career as a glamour model in 1983, but by the mid-’80s had made the natural transition to pop music. After the success of her debut album, 1985’s Touch Me
Fox enlisted the help of prolific producers, R&B/freestyle group, professional swole clowns, photobombers, and Jheri Curl June alumni Full Force to write and produce “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too).” Of course, in typical Full Force fashion, the group insisted on not just writing, producing, and singing backup for the song, but also appearing in the video:
We’ll be back tomorrow for one more day of woman-fronted jheri curl music. Spotify and YouTube playlists below:
I’ll be the first to admit: when it comes to jheri curl music’s holy trinity of “Star” groups (Midnight Star, Starpoint, and Atlantic Starr, in case you had to ask), Starpoint is probably my least favorite. But now that I live in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia metro area, I feel that it’s important to give them some love–if only because the original lineup hails from the Maryland state capitol of Annapolis.
Not that geography is the only thing Starpoint have going for them. I mean, just listen to “Object of My Desire,” their sole Top 40 hit from their 1985 album Restless
You know what? On second thought, I take it back; Starpoint might actually be my favorite “Star” group in the Jheri-Curl catalogue.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more woman-fronted jheri curl music; in the meantime, keep up with the Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump.
After four solo albums–two after her split with musical partner and husband Ike Turner–1984’s Private Dancer
Tina’s cover of the short-lived New York City-based group Spider’s song “Better Be Good to Me” stayed true to the original’s basic pop/rock sound, but updated it with some slick mid-’80s Jheri-Curl flair. Now, enjoy watching Tina Turner strut around in a full leather bodysuit and have a weird hip-thrusting standoff with that guy from the Fixx:
Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump:
Like several of the other artists we’ve been discussing this year, vocalist and keyboardist Patrice Rushen had a significant career before jheri curl (B.J.C.). She recorded three well-regarded albums for jazz imprint Prestige Records in the 1970s before switching over to R&B with 1978’s Patrice
Rushen released her eighth album, Straight from the Heart
We’ll be back tomorrow with more tracks from the women of jheri curl music. Keep up with the Spotify and YouTube playlists below: