The Womack Sisters, the musical group comprised of siblings, BG, Zeimani, and Kucha, are bringing back the sounds of classic soul in their own special way. These ladies have an impressive legacy as they are daughters of Cecil and Linda Womack who were part of the act, Womack & Womack, who were successful singer-songwriters and producers. Their uncle, was the iconic R&B singer, Bobby Womack and their grandfather was the soul and gospel legend, Sam Cooke on their mother's side. With all this talent in their bloodline, it's not much of a surprise that these sisters have the stuff to make some memorable music.
In 2022, the Womack Sisters released a six track EP, the aptly titled, "Legacy" which included their version of Cooke's anthem, "A Change is Gonna Come". Now the trio has signed with the renowned soul preservation label, Daptone Records for their self-titled, debut album due out in August. With Gabriel Roth, the musician and songwriter behind the vintage soul group, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings on production, the sisters utilize their smooth harmonies with a retro girl group sound on the singles, "If I Let You" and "Chauffeur".
Be sure to catch The Womack Sisters on the road beginning next month on The Constellation Tour with Thee Sacred Souls and LA LOM as well as opening for Al Green at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on August 14th.
Bonnie Tyler, the raspy voiced pop vocalist who is best known for the smash hit song, "Total Eclipse of the Heart", has passed away at the age of seventy-five. In May, the Welsh performer had been hospitalized for an emergency intestinal surgery but would be placed in a medically-induced coma due to complications. After a month, Tyler woke up from her coma but remained in critical condition.
Born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Neath, Wales, she was exposed to wide variety of singers and musical genres as a child and was later inspired to pursue a career in music as a teen. After placing runner up in a talent competition, Hopkins would perform back-up vocals for local bands and form her own group. During this time, she changed her professional name to "Sherene Davis" to avoid confusion with Welsh folk singer, Mary Hopkin. She soon attracted attention from talent scouts and was signed to RCA Records in 1975. Not thrilled with her stage name, they suggested various names until she decided on "Bonnie Tyler".
Following a couple of promotional singles (including "Lost in France" which reached the top ten in Britain), Tyler's debut album, "The World Starts Tonight" was released in 1977 and found modest success in Europe. But shortly after recording the album, Tyler had surgery to remove nodules from her vocal cords with the operation permanently leaving her with a slight rasp to her voice.
Tyler's next album, released the following year, "Natural Force" would be her breakthrough with the single, "It's a Heartache" becoming an international hit, reaching number three in the US, number four in the UK and selling over six million copies. With her distinctive voice, she was referred to as a "female Rod Stewart". Tyler would continue recording but her subsequent albums did not enjoy the same amount of success.
After her contract with RCA had expired, Tyler signed with Columbia Records in 1982. In search of a producer for her first album on the label, she approached Jim Steinman, a producer and songwriter best known for Meat Loaf's iconic 1977 album, "Bat Out of Hell". The first single, "Total Eclipse of the Heart", released in 1983 from her fifth album, "Faster Than the Speed of Night", was a emotional power ballad that was a perfect showcase for Tyler's dramatic voice. The song became a monster smash, reaching the top ten across the globe, selling well over six million copies and earning Tyler a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She would have another hit the following year with "Holding Out for a Hero" from the "Footloose" movie soundtrack.
Tyler went on to record eighteen studio albums throughout her career with her last album, "The Best Is Yet to Come" was released in 2021. She was still performing and had been planning to hit the road later in the year for a tour through Europe before her hospitalization. She had been married to Robert Sullivan, a property developer and a British judo competitor in the 1972 Olympics, since 1973.
Victor Willis, the lead vocalist and founding member of the queer-coded, disco act, Village People, has died on June 30th. He had struggled with drug addiction for many years after leaving the group and would have several run-ins with the law. He would undergo treatment in 2006 after an arrest and had remained sober since then. No details of his cause of death have been revealed. He was seventy-four, passing away one day before his birthday on July 1st.
Born in Dallas but raised in San Francisco, Willis was brought up in the church as his father was Baptist minister. He began singing gospel music before moving on to soul and jazz as he got older. Willis would get into theater and moved to New York where he landed roles on Broadway.
While in New York, Willis met French producers, Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo who were interested in him performing vocals on a disco record project they were working on called "Village People". The self-titled debut album was released in 1977 and the single, "San Francisco (You've Got Me)" became a popular hit internationally. This lead to listeners wanting to see this band perform live but there was not an actual "Village People" at this point. So the producers and Willis quickly assembled a group that featured Alex Briley, Felipe Rose and three other performers. Morali and Belolo got the inspiration for creating an image for the band based on male archetypes of the gay men living in New York City's Greenwich Village. With Willis as the lead voice of the band dressed as a cop (later a Naval Officer), Briley as a soldier and Rose as a Native American, they added permanent singers, Glenn Hughes (leatherman), Randy Jones (cowboy) and David Hodo (construction worker) to record their next album.
The follow-up album, "Macho Man" became an even bigger hit in 1978 with the title track crossing over from the dance floor to the mainstream, reaching number twenty-five on the US Billboard pop chart and another single, "Key West" reaching the top five on the dance chart. Later in the same year, Village People released their third album, "Cruisin'" which featured the group's biggest hit, "Y.M.C.A." which reached number two on the pop chart and has gone on to become a popular anthem at parties and sporting events. Another album, "Go West" (with this title song later covered by Pet Shop Boys in 1993) was released the following year with the single, "In The Navy" becoming another top-five smash hit.
After deciding to leave Village People in 1979 (right before the filming of the disastrous musical, "Can't Stop The Music"), Willis tried to distance himself from the group, refusing to perform the songs for many years. In May 2012, Willis would win a landmark ruling in the first case heard regarding the Copyright Act of 1976, which allows recording artists and writers to reclaim their master recordings and publishing rights initially given to record and publishing companies after thirty-five years, recapturing the copyrights of many of the popular songs he co-wrote for Village People. He would release "Solo Man" in 2015, a solo album he recorded back in 1979. Willis would return to performing with Village People in 2018 with a new line-up and recorded their first studio album in thirty-three years, "A Village People Christmas".
Willis is survived by his wife, Karen Huff-Willis, a lawyer and entertainment executive, with the couple being married since 2007. He was previously married to the actress, Phylicia Ayers-Allen who he met during the Broadway run of "The Wiz" in 1978. The couple separated in 1982 and she would go on to marry the former NFL player and sportscaster, Ahmad Rashad three years later.
For his third non-fiction feature film, following his docs on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Music Festival and Sly Stone, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson delivers "Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World)" (streaming now on HBO Max) which examines the extraordinary career and enduring legacy of this legendary r&b band who went on to sell well over ninety million records throughout their career. While Earth Wind & Fire was made up of an unusually large number of members, the driving, creative force and spiritual leader of the group was really only one person: Maurice White.
Born in Memphis, TN, White endured emotional hardship as a small child when his mother moved to Chicago for a better opportunity following the passing of his father, leaving him behind to be raised by his grandmother. His mother would remarry and start another family and he wouldn't live with her until he was a teenager. This would leave White with a deep feeling of abandonment, some resentment and trust issues, affecting his personal and professional relationships later in his life.
One thing that helped him get through his childhood trauma was music and he gravitated towards playing the drums. First starting out playing professionally with the jazz/soul band, the Pharaohs, White would join them as session players for Chess Records, backing many of the popular acts on the Chicago soul label. By 1966, White left this band and the label to join the Ramsey Lewis Trio to replace the drummer. During his time with this jazz group, they achieved great commercial success and awards while White was encouraged by Lewis to develop his stage presence. This was also when White first encountered the African thumb piano, kalimba and used it for a recording with the Ramsey Lewis Trio.
But White once again became restless, wanting to have more control over his music, and formed another group, The Salty Peppers with friends, Wade Flemons and Don Whitehead. They had some minor success in Chicago but soon decided to take their chances by heading to the west coast. Once there, White soon became intrigued by studying philosophies, metaphysics, mysticism and astrology with these concepts beginning to heavily influence his life and approach to creating music. Using his astrological sign, Sagittarius which has primary elemental qualities of fire and earth and air, White came up with the name of "Earth, Wind & Fire" and guided his band towards universal, genre-defying music that would inspire all listeners.
Briskly paced and visually electrifying, Thompson utilizes video footage, animated sequences and plenty of famous talking heads to reveal the importance and legacy of this group. We have founding members (who still perform with the band), Phillip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and White's brother, Verdine who share their experiences working with the mercurial White (who died in 2016 at the age of seventy-four) which managed to be both gratifying and complicated. Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie, H.E.R., Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and even the Obamas all express on camera the importance and emotional impact that the music by Earth Wind & Fire had left on each of them.
"Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World)" is the perfect tribute to this pioneering band, offering objective insight and historical information that reveals how they expanded and innovated their sound to attract a global audience, blazing a powerful trail for other artists to follow.
