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Anita Baker's Rhythm of Her Very Own.
by James M. Blount, Dec. 31, 1994
about...time Magazine
BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- In the span of a decade, she has sold more than 13 million records. She is a seven-time Grammy Award winner whose live concerts are glorious presentations of R&B, pop and jazz. Her broad musical appeal has inspired collaborations with Luciano Pavarotti and Frank Sinatra as well as a request to duet with Luther Vandross.
It's the wide scope of Anita Baker's appeal that catapulted her 1988 Giving You The Best That I Got album to double platinum in less than eight weeks and which kept "Rapture" on the Billboard charts for three years. And now, with the release of Rhythm of Love, her fourth Elektra album, Anita Baker proves once again just why she is arguably one of modern pop music's greatest exponents.
Recorded over a one year period in New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles, with Baker serving as executive producer, Rhythm of Love contains 12 songs, half of which were either written, produced and/or arranged by the artist.
These songs include the yearning, swaying "Body and Soul," the project's first single; the gospel-tinged mid-tempo "Baby"; the sentimental, heart-warming "Plenty of Room"; the jazzy, soulful "I Apologize"; an urgent, dramatic "The Wrong Man"; and the exotic, percolating percussion-laden title track.
To assist in capturing her unique musical vision, Baker, as usual, has surrounded herself with a stellar cast of producers, such as Tommy LiPuma, who produced a sultry reworking of the Bacharach/David classic, "The Look of Love"; the sweet, hopeful "Only for a While"; and the smokey, melancholy "Sometimes I Wonder Why." Barry J. Eastmond directed the dazzling "It's Been You" and the aforementioned Baker compositions "I Apologize" and "Plenty of Room." George Duke, meanwhile, transformed the moody classic, "My Funny Valentine," into a languid jazz opus.
These producers, aided by a team of top-notch musicians built the musical framework; at the center of it all is the Queen of Passion herself, Anita, whose earthy, soaring, and uniquely impassioned vocal virtuosity gives every track a life of its own.
No matter what the composition, an Anita Baker recording always sounds like her and no one else.
Of the album's creation, Baker says, "There was no special concept for the album. The criteria was simply great songs. Whether or not I wrote them, they are all very personal to me," she explains. "I've always loved `The Look of Love,' particularly the Isaac Hayes version. So I went to [arranger] Joe Mardin, and we gave the arrangement a twist to make it mine."
As for "It's Been You": "That's another song I've wanted to do for a while. It was originally cut a few years ago by the group Perri, who have worked as my back-up singers on the road, and I've been in love with it ever since I heard it."
"Plenty Of Room" may be interpreted as a romantic plea by fans, but the Baker original actually emanates from another place. "I wrote it for my boys," she says. "You want your loved ones to express their freedom, to grow and be who they are. The song simply says, `That's fine, but if you ever need an emotional place, I've got plenty of room.'"
The title track comes from an equally personal place. "Rhythm of Love is about my going away to find myself," says Baker. "It's a total departure from anything I've ever done. I wanted it to be very aggressive and edgy, and to get that, it also had to be very percussive. At the same time, the lyrics are very soothing, very personable. I think that song actually personifies what we all go through. We all have a rhythm in life and in love, we just have to find what is ours."
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