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Anita Baker: giving the best that she’s got.
by Dwight Hobbes, Contributing Writer; Photo, Harry Langdon, Feb. 10, 2004
Insight News
Minneapolis, MN -- Anita Baker’s current national tour is billed “A Triumphant Return.” And while none can argue against it being a triumph, let’s split hairs to question just how much of a return this is. Yes, it’s been more than a few years since Baker’s latest recording and live performances. But she never left the hearts and minds of a following so steadfast it completely filled the 2,400-seat Historic Orpheum Theater on January 2.
This lady of song is a living institution. Baker will endure whether she records and performs over the next decade and beyond or retires tomorrow. Such is her legacy, succeeding and taking a rightful place among immortals like Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Big Mama Thorton and Ruth Brown -- women who’ve left an indelible mark on American music (and international appreciation thereof). Anita Baker: that says it all.
Native to Toledo, Ohio she banged around in the requisite trenches and, owing to cast-iron chops, ascended at the age of 18 to front the Detroit funk band Chapter 8. Four years later, Baker signed with the Beverly Glen label (as in Bobby Womack’s classic The Poet which yielded “If You Think You’re Lonely Now”) and broke out on her own with The Songstress. It may’ve been a lack of promotion. Or poor distribution. Could’ve been both. Whatever the case, the album, a tour de force debut, didn’t sell.
Enter Elektra Records in 1986 with Rapture. The lead single, “Sweet Love” took the industry by storm, insinuating this premiere vocalist into listening habits everywhere, in the process garnering a Grammy Award for Best Song. Giving You The Best That I Got followed, cementing Baker as a phenomenon, dispelling the slightest notion that she might have emerged a flash in the pan. The rest, of course, is history.
Anyone who didn’t catch Baker at the Orpheum truly blew it. Sashaying on stage in an exquisitely form-fitting gown, radiant with sheer warmth, Baker broke straight into trademark song and, between selections, treated the entire audience, from the VIP front rows to admirers in the upper most balconies, like living room guests. And she didn’t skip a single favorite, doing every cut from Rapture, roughly half of Giving You The Best That I Got and “Angel” from The Songstress. “No One In The World” brought the house down as Baker, who insatiably vamps, reigned herself in to deliver the dramatic climax with the same subtlety and raw, heartrending power that made this song infinitely memorable.
To be sure, her signature phrasing, here holding fast to the melody, there embarking on stratospheric improv, held true all night long, rendering everyone in attendance absolutely mesmerized. “Rules,” “Just Because,” “Been So Long,” you name it she did it, burning to the bone. Sometimes the lyrics got sacrificed, but she emoted with such passion it would not have mattered were she singing in Chinese. Baker rared back and took off on such a rousing rendition of “Fairy Tales” workers must still be trying to put the roof back on.
As if singing like no one else can wasn’t enough, shading phrases and executing acrobatic slides, Baker animated her performance, putting every inch of the stage to good use, alternately gliding with ladylike grace and throwing down with hip-swiveling grit, not for one moment missing a pitch. Much as folk in these parts are inclined to hold forth with a perfunctory standing ovation, this is one show that richly deserved and, it goes without saying, got one. Gracious beyond gracious, before exiting, Baker made sure to shake each and every hand from the audience that she could get to without falling into the crowd. When she finally took her leave, plenty love was left.
They don’t make ‘em anymore like the Good Lord made Anita Baker. If you were there, you know. If you weren’t, don’t despair. She now is signed with Bluenote Records and is expected to have a new album out in the foreseeable future. This means she will again go on tour. Should it bring her this way, you herewith have a heads up and can blame nobody but yourself for not making sure you get tickets.
http://www.insightnews.com/aesthetics.asp?mode=display&articleID=1181