Songs of Soul Biographies
By: aarp
Yolanda Adams | Patti Austin | Paris Bennett | Shirley Caesar | Chaka Khan | Queen Latifah | Ann Nesby | Dionne Warwick | CeCe Winans
Another in the line of gospel artists putting the soul and fervor back in R&B music, Yolanda Adams was a school teacher in Houston during the mid-'80s and occasionally did modeling work. Her mother had studied music while at college, so Adams grew up listening to jazz and classical music as well as gospel artists such as James Cleveland and the Edwin Hawkins Singers and R&B vocalists like Stevie Wonder and Nancy Wilson.
A professional since the age of five, Patti Austin was a protégé of Dinah Washington and Sammy Davis, Jr. A 1969 single for United Artists titled "Family Tree" cracked the R&B Top 50. Austin cut her debut LP, End of a Rainbow, for Creed Taylor's CTI label in 1976, followed by Havana Candy in 1977 and Body Language in 1980. She sang lead vocals for Japanese koto player Yutaka Yokokura on "Love Light" in 1978, did a duet with Michael Jackson on "It's the Falling in Love" for Off the Wall, and sang "The Closer I Get to You" on Tom Browne's album in 1979. Austin dueted with George Benson on "Moody's Mood for Love" in 1980. She sang backgrounds for sessions by Houston Person, Noel Pointer, Ralph McDonald, Angela Bofill, and Roberta Flack. Austin did vocals on Quincy Jones' The Dude LP in 1981, and was featured on the hit "Razzamatazz." She inked a solo deal on Jones' Qwest label, and her 1982 LP Every Home Should Have One included the number one pop hit (number nine R&B) "Baby, Come to Me," which got widespread exposure via the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The follow-up single, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing," was the theme for the film Best Friends.
At only 4’ 11”, Paris Bennett may be pint-sized. But she definitely packs a wallop when it comes to singing.
The national television audience got a taste of what she can deliver when Bennett auditioned and later became one of the 24 contestants on the fifth season of the hugely popular reality series “American Idol.” Early into the sing-off, the Rockford, Illinois-born singer was a standout, capturing the audience’s and voters’ hearts with her natural, full-bodied voice. Bennett was one of the top five finalists. other songs on the album, “Ordinary Love” stems from Bennett’s experiences as a young lady on the precipice between teenage and womanhood.
“This album is about experiences I went through before and after ‘American Idol,’ like not having a dad while I was growing up,” explains Bennett. “It’s about different aspects of life that people can relate to.”
In the case of “Ordinary Love,” produced by Jon Jon Traxx, Bennett is singing about being in love with her soul mate. “Dreamin’,” produced by J. Isaac, as its title implies, embraces Bennett’s hopes as pushes forward post-Idol. This particular song, in fact, doubles as the theme song to an upcoming reality show on a She comes from a musical family that includes her voice-training mother Jamecia Bennett and grandmother Ann Nesby. “Every day I get a new tactic from my grandmother about my career,” notes Bennett. “But mainly she’s told me to just be me and never change who I am.” At one point Bennett considered putting her singing aside to be a normal senior high student and go on to college. Her career course changed when “American Idol” switched audition sites to nearby Greensboro, North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Winning the audition, she ended up completing high school while appearing on the show. Bennett describes that busy period as a valuable learning experience that signaled more than just the end of the road in her unfolding Cinderella story.
Born in North Carolina, Caesar is known as the First Lady of Gospel. At the age of 10 she began singing and performing for family and friends. Shirley Caesar performs with an energetic and boisterous style. She believes that with all the suffering and hardships in the world people will listen to her recordings and be encouraged. Shirley Caesar's hope is that her messages will be listened to and people will be encouraged to lead good lives.
Besides being the minister of her church in North Carolina and performing concerts nationwide, Shirley Caesar has performed on Broadway. Her Broadway performances include roles in Born to Sing: Mama 3, Mama I Want to Sing and Sing: Mama 2. She made a guest appearance at the 25th anniversary of Walt Disney World with fellow artists Peabo Bryson, CeCe Winans, Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Her activities include performing for President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton at a campaign function. Despite her busy schedule, Shirley Caesar constantly finds time to get her messages of encouragement and peace to people.
Best known in the mainstream for her superb 1984 cover of Prince's "I Feel for You," R&B singer Chaka Khan enjoyed solo success as well as popularity as a member of the group Rufus. Debuting in 1973 with a self-titled effort on the ABC label, Rufus was among the pre-eminent funk groups of the decade; distinguished by Khan's dynamic vocals, the group earned half a dozen gold or platinum albums before she went solo in 1978. Produced by Arif Mardin, Chaka proved to be a significant hit on the strength of the single "I'm Every Woman." In 1990, she won another Grammy for "I'll Be Good to You," a duet with Ray Charles. Come 2 My House, released on Prince's independent label, appeared in 1998, years after Khan had a falling out with Warner Bros. Through the Fire, she collected another Grammy — in 2004 — for performing Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" with the Funk Brothers in Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Most recently, she recorded Funk This, a set of relatively funky originals and covers (produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis), released in 2007. She’s currently starring in the Broadway production of The Color Purple.
Queen Latifah was certainly not the first female rapper, but she was the first one to become a bona fide star. She had more charisma than her predecessors, and her strong, intelligent, no-nonsense persona made her arguably the first MC who could properly be described as feminist. Her third album, Black Reign, was the first album by a female MC ever to go gold, a commercial breakthrough that paved the way for a talented crew of women rappers to make their own way onto the charts as the '90s progressed. Latifah herself soon branched out into other media, appearing in movies and sitcoms and even hosting her own talk show. Yet even with all the time she spent away from recording, she remained perhaps the most recognizable woman in hip-hop, with a level of respect that bordered on iconic status. Her performance in the acclaimed movie musical Chicago, which garnered her Best Supporting Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. She has acted in several movies, including Taxi, Beauty Shop, Last Holiday, and Hairspray.
Formerly the lead vocalist for the 30-piece gospel choir Sounds of Blackness, Ann Nesby struck out on her own in 1996 with an album for the Perspective label, Ann Nesby 1996. With the help of super-producers Jam & Lewis, the R&B-oriented LP scored a hit with "I'm Here for You." Nesby has contributed to several soundtracks (Batman, Mo' Money, Demolition Man) and tribute albums (to Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon). She has also won two Grammy awards: one as part of Sounds of Blackness for the 1991 album Evolution of Gospel, plus another for the version of Handel's Messiah entitled A Soulful Celebration.
Sophisticated is a word often used to describe her musical approach and the music she sings. She is a pop singer of a sort that perhaps could only have emerged out of the Brill Building environment of post-Elvis Presley, pre-Beatles urban pop in the early '60s. Marie Dionne Warrick was born into a gospel-music family. Her father was a gospel record promoter for Chess Records and her mother managed the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group consisting of her relatives. She first raised her voice in song at age six at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, NJ, and soon after was a member of the choir. As a teenager, she formed a singing group called the Gospelaires with her sister Dee Dee and her aunt Cissy Houston (later the mother of Whitney Houston).
The eighth of ten siblings in the musical Winans family, CeCe Winans (born Priscilla) performed most often with her brother, BeBe, in a duo which recorded gospel material with R&B settings and proved to be the most commercially successful of the Winans groupings. Born in Detroit, she worked with BeBe in a duo called the PTL Singers until 1987, when they released their self-titled debut album (with vocal contributions from nine members of the family). Four albums followed during the next seven years (two of which hit gold) plus 1991's platinum Different Lifestyles. The duo's success increased as they added more contemporary forms of production — their two number one R&B singles, "Addictive Love" and "I'll Take You There," both treated spiritual love in fuzzy terms just as conducive to the physical. After 1994's Relationships, CeCe began recording her first solo album.
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