Soul Strutter: Anita Baker

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Anita Baker - A Profile

Anita Baker is 65 today. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the release of her debut album "The Songstress", so to celebrate this landmark she is touring the states this year with "The Songstress Tour", and is set to release her first new material for 19 years since "My Everything" (if you discount the live album in 2004 and a Christmas album in 2005).

Baker, along with Luther Vandross, was one of the biggest soul artist to emerge in the 80s with her iconic 1986, 5 time Platinum selling US (8m worldwide), album "Rapture" but soul connoisseurs were already on the case from her highly regarded debut solo album "The Songstress" prior to that in 1983 and also from her work with Chapter 8 in the late 70s featuring in their debut, eponymous album in 1979.

From numerous nominations, Baker has now won eight Grammys, seven Soul Train Awards, four American Music Awards and a Canadian Smooth Jazz International Artist of the Year award and has four Platinum albums, along with two Gold albums from her seven studio albums (which includes her 2004 Christmas album which is the only one that hasn't gone at least Gold).In 2005 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.

Baker was born in Toldeo, OH, on 26 Jan 1958 (a vintage year which also saw the births of Michael Jackson and Prince) and was raised by a foster family in Detroit after being abandoned by her mother. When 16 she began singing in nightclubs in Detroit and was given an audition for Chapter 8 by group founder David Washington who'd seen her perform. She joined the group in 1975 and the group toured until they secured a recording contract with Ariola in 1979 releasing a self-titled album. I'm sure I've written this on the blog on a previous post but, amazingly, when Ariola was acquired by Arista the group was dropped as some hair-brained executive considered that Baker didn't have 'star potential'. How wrong was he, I wonder if he retained his job? Baker then took work as a waitress and receptionist until she was approached by Otis Smith to record for his Beverly Glen label.

Smith had already secured Bobby Womack who released one of his best albums for the label, "The Poet", in 1981 and went on to release "Poet II" and "Someday We'll All Be Free" (often referred to a The Poet III). Johnnie Taylor also recorded for the label. Baker recorded her debut album "The Songstress" which was released in 1983. The label only lasted a short time, closing in 1985 and, apart from the three previously mentioned, only had another two artists on the roster, Chapter 8 and Kevin Wells. Perhaps the downfall of the label was due to Smith allegedly not paying artists their royalties, as Baker asserts.

The album produced four R&B charting singles "No More Tears" (#49), its B-side "Will You Be Mine" (#87), "Angel" (#5), "You're the Best Thing Yet" (#28) and "Feel The Need" (#67) but none crossed over to the Hot 100.

Baker left Beverly Glen acrimoniously over unpaid royalties and Smith delaying the release of a follow up album. Smith in turn sued her for breach of contract but the court ruled in Baker's favour. She signed to Warner's Elektra subsidiary in 1985 and released "Rapture" in March 1986. Sales, whilst initially slow following the release of the lead single "Watch You Step", soared after the release of the next single "Sweet Love" which made #2 R&B, #8 Hot 100 and #13 UK pop chart. Three further singles came from the album, "Caught Up in the Rapture" (#6/#37), "Same Ole Love (365 Days a Year)" (#8#44) and "No One in the World" (#5/#44).

Her follow up album "Giving you The Best The I Got" topped the albums chart (selling over 5m copies) and produced another three singles, two topped the R&B chart and made the Hot 100. Whilst "Sweet Love" is probably regarded as her signature song, it was not her highest charting single, that privilege goes to "Giving You The Best That I Got" (#1 R&B/ #3 Hot 100) and its follow up "Just Because" also topped the R&B chart and reached #14 Hot 100. The third single from the album "Lead Me Into Love" did well R&B, reaching #4, but did not crossover.

Two albums were released in the 90s, "Compositions" (1990), a more jazz oriented album, which sold over a million and spawned three singles "Talk to Me", "Soul Inspiration" and "Fairy Tales" and her fourth consecutive million selling album "Rhythm of Love" (1994), which fared better than her last selling over 2m copies, and featured the Top 40 single "Body and Soul", the Grammy winning song "I Apologize" along with "It's Been You".

Baker took a hiatus to raise her family between 1994 and 2004 when her next album "My Everything" released on Blue Note. Three singles came from it, "You're My Everything", "How Does It Feel" and "Serious".

This was her last album of original, contemporary, material as she released a live album in 2004 and a Christmas album in 2005, but in 1995 she released a forgettable bland ballad duet single, "When You Love Someone", with James Ingram from the movie 'Forget Paris' which was a lowly hit reaching #71 R&B and #111 Hot 100.

In 2012 she released a cover of Tyrese's "Lately" which was from a proposed album "Only Forever" which was cancelled.

Baker has so far achieved twelve top 10 R&B hits and all but three of her sixteen R&B charting singles since the release of "Rapture" have made the Top 20.

The playlist below cherry picks some of the not so obvious tracks, most not released as singles and avoids the singles that crossed over as I'm sure most are already familiar with them (although there are a few videos of the classics), if not so much some of the album tracks. Note "My Everything" is the only studio album not available on Spotify so there are no tracks from it in playlist.