Dystopian Dance Party

Blog

  • Jheri Curl June: Jody Watley’s “Still a Thrill”

    Jheri Curl June: Jody Watley’s “Still a Thrill”

    One of my favorite things about researching and writing for Jheri Curl June is the complex web of connections between the various artists within the genre. Today’s selection, Chicago‘s Jody Watley, is no exception. Naturally, as with most things jheri curl, many roads lead back to Minneapolis: Watley’s 1987 solo debut was co-produced by Prince‘s childhood friend and former bandmate–and, as of this year, JCJ vet in his own right–André Cymone. The other producer on the album? None other than David Z, the older brother of Revolution drummer Bobby, who engineered much of Prince’s work through the mid-1980s.

    But Watley is far from just another footnote of the ever-sprawling Prince Dynasty; she’s a part of jheri curl history on her own strengths. She got her start in the late 1970s as a dancer on Soul Train, where legendary host Don Cornelius chose her to join his in-house vocal group Shalamar (more on them next week). And Cymone wasn’t just a producer Watley nabbed for his Minneapolis-Sound cred; the pair were romantically involved, and would later marry for several years beginning in 1989, with a son, Arie, born in 1992.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: Nu Shooz’ “I Can’t Wait”

    Today’s installment of JCJ Ladies’ Week is also a story about the interesting cross-pollination of regional and global influences during the late jheri curl era. It begins in Portland, Oregon–a city better known at the time for its hardcore punk scene than for jheri curl music–where husband-and-wife team Valerie Day and John Smith formed Nu Shooz, a multiracial funk group that put a new-wavey spin on the emergent jheri-curl subgenre of freestyle. In March of 1985, Nu Shooz released their second album, Tha’s Right, which included a catchy little number called “I Can’t Wait.”

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: Grace Jones’ “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You)”

    For our second day of JCJ Ladies’ Week, we’ll be looking at a mid-’80s track by Grace Jones. The Jamaican-born style icon is probably best known for her androgynous looks and outlandish behavior, but she is in fact a prolific model, actor, and musical artist.

    “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You),” from Jones’ 1986 album Inside Story, was produced by ex-Chic frontman Nile Rodgers and is easily her most accessible song. Musically, it conforms to the now-mainstream sound that jheri curl music had brought to the pop market. But Jones’ signature, commanding contralto voice still sets it apart as distinctly her own.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: Teena Marie’s “Lovergirl”

    Just like we did last year, we wanted to take a week out of Jheri Curl June to spotlight the important contributions made by women artists to the genre. And how better to kick off our second annual JCJ Ladies’ Week than with the Ivory Queen of Soul herself, Teena Marie?

    Initially a protégé of Jheri Curl June alumnus Rick James, Teena Marie was an accomplished singer and musician in her own right. She wrote and produced nearly all of her own music, including her biggest hit, 1984’s “Lovergirl.”

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: The Whispers’ “Rock Steady”

    On Tuesday we talked about the Deele, the Ohio-based R&B group that kickstarted the careers of Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds. Today we look at one of the songs the duo produced under their production company, Deelesongz, Inc.: the Whispers’ “Rock Steady.”

    The Whispers were formed in 1963 by twins and black Mario Bros. Wallace “Scotty” Scott and Walter Scott, and had several hits throughout the ’60s and ’70s. But “Rock Steady” was their first hit to make it into the Top 10 on the Hot 100, peaking at number 7. I like to think that the success of Rock Steady can be directly attributed to this amazing video:

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: D-Train’s “You’re the One for Me (Labor of Love Mix)”

    Jheri curl music is an essentially synthetic musical form: like its namesake from the hair world, it is not a genre that occurs in nature, but a heavily processed transformation of traditional African American styles. That’s one of the reasons why Brooklyn jheri-curl duo D-Train was so interesting. A collaboration between the group’s namesake, singer James “D-Train” Williams, and keyboardist/producer Hubert Eaves III, D-Train took the most traditional form of African American music, gospel, and funneled it through the most synthetic of mid-’80s production methods; or, to use a more fitting metaphor, Eaves’ production softened, set, and activated the natural soulfulness of Williams’ vocals.

    Arguably the best example of this technique was D-Train’s breakout hit, 1981’s “You’re the One for Me“: opening with Williams crooning the chorus over an understated piano line, it sounds for the first 45 seconds or so like a throwback to the pre-disco soul of, say, Teddy Pendergrass. But then the beat kicks in, followed by the synthesized handclaps, and suddenly the D-Train has transferred to Jheri Curl Station, with Eaves’ infectious synth line as the engine. It’s the musical equivalent of a big plate full of cornbread and collard greens suddenly transforming into the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and taking off into the sky.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: Phil Collins’ “Sussudio”

    Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking: who let this flaccid, schlocky dad-pop interloper into our pristine shrine to the jheri curl and the music it inspired? But just relax, and I’ll explain everything.

    After the massive success of Purple Rain in the summer of 1984, jheri curl music went from being a trendy form of R&B to one of the dominant modes of mainstream pop, full stop. Pretty soon, everybody was starting to sound a little jheri-curl–even people who had no business sounding that way. Even people who could never actually have a jheri curl of their own. People like the incurably lame, and just-as-incurably bald, Phil Collins.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June: The Deele’s “Stimulate”

    In 1989 Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds founded LaFace records, the record company responsible for Usher, OutKast, TLC, Pink, and Toni Braxton, among others.

    Back in 1985, though, they were sporting bright pink satin dress shirts and impressive jheri curls with the rest of the boys in the Deele, yet another funk and R&B outfit from Ohio.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl Cinema: Purple Rain (1984)

    Jheri Curl June is, of course, first and foremost about the music. But, as I wrote in this year’s introductory post, jheri curl is also a profoundly visual form; it is, after all, the only genre of music to my knowledge named after a hairstyle. And so it only makes sense that we should also take some of the imagery associated with the music into consideration. That’s why this year, I’m happy to announce an entirely new feature dedicated to Jheri Curl Cinema. And there’s no other film more qualified to launch such a feature than Prince’s and Albert Magnoli’s 1984 cult classic Purple Rain.

    There are a few reasons why Purple Rain is so perfect for our inaugural Jheri Curl Cinema post. First, yesterday was of course Prince‘s 57th birthday–and while His Royal Badness presumably hasn’t celebrated his birthday since he became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001, that just means we have to celebrate it twice as hard. But second, and more to the point, Purple Rain is an important film because it captures the essence of the Minneapolis scene in the early 1980s–and thus, by extension, the essence of jheri curl music itself.

    (more…)

  • Jheri Curl June Special: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis

    The main reason we celebrate Jheri Curl June in June is because, let’s face it, we are only human, and are as susceptible to the siren song of alliteration as the next group of hack Internet writers. But there’s also a pretty good justification for the timing, because the birthdays of two of jheri curl music’s most important innovators fall in the first week of June. We covered the first of those innovators, Prince, in last year’s inaugural Jheri Curl June Special.  So this time around, we’ll be discussing the other one: James “Jimmy Jam” Harris, born June 6, 1959.

    If Prince was jheri curl music’s architect, then Jimmy Jam and his longtime musical partner Terry Lewis were the brilliant engineers who shaped the structure to its fullest potential. Their take on the “Minneapolis Sound” developed by their former mentor added a new level of polish and sophistication; and when Prince shifted his own music away from traditional jheri-curl and toward neo-psychedelia in the mid-’80s, Jam and Lewis went in the opposite direction, crafting ever-more-flawless pop-friendly tracks that kept JCM in the top of the charts and, ultimately, evolved into the next dominant R&B sound, New Jack Swing.

    (more…)