Rhythm and Blues (Music)

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      Gwen McCrae, 81, Dies; Singer Helped Open the Dance Floor to Disco

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      Originally a gospel singer, she went on to meld soulful melodies with dance-floor-friendly grooves on songs like the 1975 Top 10 hit “Rockin’ Chair.”Gwen McCrae, whose gospel-infused R&B hits of the early 1970s like “Lead Me On” and “Rockin’ Chair” featured bouncing, dance-floor-friendly grooves that helped open the door to disco, died on Feb. 21 in Miami. She was 81.Her former husband and frequent singing partner, George McCrae, said she died in a care facility from complications of a stroke she had in 2012.Though she had her share of nationwide hits, Ms. McCrae was best known on the music scene in the Miami area, where her upbeat R&B fit perfectly with the hot nights and subtropical vibe.She released most of her best-known songs through TK Records, a regional powerhouse founded by Henry Stone that counted other proto-disco acts, like Betty Wright and KC and the Sunshine Band, among its stable.Ms. McCrae and her husband, George McCrae, in the early 1970s. After the worldwide success of his signature hit, “Rock Your Baby,” she recorded her own hit, “Rockin’ Chair.”GAB Archive/Redferns, via Getty ImagesShe began performing with Mr. McCrae as a duo. They recorded their own albums, sang backup on others and carved a presence for themselves in the clubs of South Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      D’Wayne Wiggins, One Third of the R&B Group Tony! Toni! Toné!, Dies at 64

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      As a paragon of the New Jack Swing sound, the band recorded three platinum albums and a slew of hits, including “Feels Good.”D’Wayne Wiggins, who brought his smooth baritone to millions of fans as a founding member and the lead singer of the R&B trio Tony! Toni! Toné!, which had three platinum albums and a slew of hits in the 1980s and ’90s including “Feels Good” and “The Blues,” died on Friday at his home in Oakland, Calif. He was 64.His family said in a statement on social media that the cause was bladder cancer.Mr. Wiggins was born and raised in Oakland and lived there most of his life, absorbing and blending the blues, funk and hip-hop sounds that he encountered on the city’s streets and in its clubs, where his father, a blues guitarist, was a regular performer.He formed Tony! Toni! Toné! in 1986 with his half brother, Charles Ray Wiggins (later known as Raphael Saadiq), who sang and played bass, and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley, who played drums.Tony! Toni! Toné! backstage in Milwaukee in 1991. From left: Timothy Christian Riley, Raphael Saadiq and Mr. Wiggins.Paul Natkin/Getty ImagesThe trio first found success performing around the San Francisco Bay Area, but they did not release their first album, “Who?,” until 1988. It was an immediate hit: Their debut single, “Little Walter,” reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart; three more singles from the album reached the Top 10; and the album was certified gold.“Who?” leaned into the traditional blues sound that the trio had grown up with, but their next three albums ventured into new territory, incorporating hip-hop, upbeat soul and dance-pop — a blend that came to be known as New Jack Swing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Roy Ayers, Vibraphonist Who Injected Soul Into Jazz, Dies at 84

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      He helped introduce a funkier strain of the music in the 1970s. He also had an impact on hip-hop: His “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has been sampled nearly 200 times. Roy Ayers, a vibraphonist who in the 1970s helped pioneer a new, funkier strain of jazz, becoming a touchstone for many artists who followed and one of the most sampled musicians by hip-hop artists, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 84.His death, in a hospital, was announced by his son Mtume, who said he died after a long illness.In addition to being one of the acknowledged masters of the jazz vibraphone, Mr. Ayers was a leader in the movement that added electric instruments, rock and R&B rhythms, and a more soulful feel to jazz. He was also one of the more commercially successful jazz musicians of his generation.He released nearly four dozen albums, most notably 22 during his 12 years with Polydor Records. Twelve of his Polydor albums spent a collective 149 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart. His composition “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” from his 1976 album of the same name, has been sampled nearly 200 times by artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. The electric piano hook from “Love,” on his first Polydor album, “Ubiquity” — which introduced his group of the same name — was used in Deee-Lite’s 1990 dance hit “Groove Is in the Heart.”“Roy Ayers is largely responsible for what we deem as ‘neo-soul,’” the producer Adrian Younge, who collaborated with Mr. Ayers and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest in 2020 on the second album in the “Jazz Is Dead” series, which showcases frequently sampled jazz musicians, told Clash magazine. “His sound mixed with cosmic soul-jazz is really what created artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. It was just that groove.“That’s not to say people around then weren’t making music with a groove,” he added, “but he is definitely a pioneer.”Mr. Ayers with the trombonist Wayne Henderson, a founder of the Crusaders, in 1977. Their recording-studio collaborations led to some of Mr. Ayers’s most significant albums.Gilles PetardWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chris Jasper, Who Helped Revitalize the Isley Brothers, Dies at 73

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      A classically trained pianist turned songwriter, he was a cornerstone of the soul group’s sound during its fertile second act in the 1970s.Chris Jasper, a Juilliard-trained keyboardist, singer and songwriter who brought an expansive musical vocabulary to the long-running R&B group the Isley Brothers, helping push them into a new hit-making era in the 1970s and ’80s with singles like “That Lady” and “Fight the Power,” died on Feb. 23. He was 73.His death was announced in a statement on his Facebook account, which noted that he had been diagnosed with cancer in December. The statement did not say where he died.Mr. Jasper, who was also a producer, started his decade-long run as an official member of the Isley Brothers in 1973. He added musical complexity to the long-running R&B group as it took on a richer, funkier style for a new decade.Looking back on the Isley Brothers’ sound in a 2020 interview with Rockin’ Hot Radio, a Delaware-based station, he said, “It’s R&B, of course,” but added that he borrowed “voicings that were used in classical music, and in particular the Romantic period, with composers like Debussy, even 20th-century composers like Gershwin.”Mr. Jasper, far left, with other members of the Isley Brothers in a mid-1970s publicity photo. Seated are Ronald, left, and Rudolph Isley; standing are, from left, Marvin, O’Kelly and Ernie Isley. T-Neck RecordsDuring his tenure, the group lodged more than a dozen singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and more than a dozen albums on the Billboard 200 — six of them in the Top 10, including “The Heat Is On,” which reached No. 1 in 1975.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Angie Stone, Hip-Hop Pioneer Turned Neo-Soul Singer, Dies at 63

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      After having success as a member of the Sequence, an early female rap group, she re-emerged in the 1990s as a practitioner of sultry, laid-back R&B.Angie Stone, a hip-hop pioneer in the late 1970s with the Sequence, one of the first all-female rap groups, who later switched gears as a solo R&B star with hits like “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” and “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” died on Saturday in Montgomery, Ala. She was 63.Her agent, Deborah Champagne, said she died in a hospital after being involved in a car crash following a performance.Alongside musicians like Erykah Badu, Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill, Ms. Stone was part of the neo-soul movement of the late 1990s and 2000s, which blended traditional soul with contemporary R&B, pop and jazz fusion. Her first album, “Black Diamond” (1999), was certified gold, as was her sophomore effort, “Mahogany Soul” (2001).A prolific songwriter with a sultry alto voice, Ms. Stone specialized in songs that combined laid-back tempos with layered instrumentation and vocals.“Angie Stone will stand proud alongside Lauryn Hill as a songwriter, producer and singer with all the props in place to become a grande dame of the R&B world in the next decade,” Billboard magazine wrote in 1999.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Roberta Flack’s 11 Essential Songs

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      One of the supreme voices of the 1970s and a master of revelatory reinterpretation has died at 88.At a New York concert in 1997, Roberta Flack referred to her voice as a “blessed instrument.” For generations of listeners it was just that, a spellbinding force that could be cool, or luxurious, or swell with suggestive power, often in the same song.Flack, who died on Monday at 88, began her career as a schoolteacher with a solid grounding in both classical music and Black church singing. She ended up one of the supreme voices of the 1970s, scoring multiple No. 1 hits that established her as a star of interpretive pop-soul, capable of stunning radio listeners and critics alike.She was a master of the revelatory reinvention. Her first hit, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” was originally a folk ballad by Ewan MacColl. Peggy Seeger’s 1957 recording of it is a brisk, warbling take with arpeggiated acoustic guitar — a classic example of the kind of carefree-songbird tunes from the early folk revival. In Flack’s hands it is slow, stirring eroticism, with a controlled range of vocal dynamics that moves from whisper-delicate to a kind of power that feels like a carnal memory.She did it again in 1973 with “Killing Me Softly With His Song” — originally by Lori Lieberman, another folkie — which Flack transformed into a hypnotic meditation. Two decades later, Lauryn Hill and the Fugees shifted its shape again with their own remake.With those tracks, Flack became the first artist to take record of the year at the Grammy Awards two consecutive times, with “The First Time” winning in 1973 and “Killing Me Softly” in 1974.Those are just two of Flack’s most familiar recordings, in a career that also included hit collaborations with singers like Donny Hathaway and Peabo Bryson, and later explorations into jazz standards. Here are 11 of her essential tracks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jerry Butler, Singer Known as the Iceman, Dies at 85

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      Jerry Butler, the graceful singer and songwriter who served as the first leader of the Impressions before launching a long, hit-heavy solo career, died on Thursday at his home in Chicago. He was 85.His death was confirmed by his assistant, who said that Mr. Butler had Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Butler’s resounding baritone voice, though gritty in timbre, was animated by gentility and charm; he approached a lyric with an almost courtly level of sensitivity. His poise explained, in part, how he came to be known as the Iceman.Mr. Butler scored his first hit in 1958 with “For Your Precious Love,” a song he recorded with the Impressions and wrote with two other members of the group. It reached No. 11 on Billboard’s pop chart. Its lyrics stressed perseverance and loyalty, themes Mr. Butler would revisit throughout his career.Immediately after leaving the group in 1960, he reached the Billboard Top 10 with “He Will Break Your Heart,” which he wrote with his bandmate Curtis Mayfield and Calvin Carter. The song proved durable: A reworked version by Tony Orlando and Dawn, “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),” would become a No. 1 hit more than a decade later.Mr. Butler’s version of “Moon River,” the Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer song from the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” climbed to No. 11 on the pop chart in 1961. The next year, his interpretation of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Make It Easy on Yourself” reached No. 20.Two years later, he reached the Top 10 again with “Let It Be Me,” a duet with Betty Everett. It performed even better than the Everly Brothers’ version, widely considered a classic: The Butler-Everett version reached No. 5, two points higher than the Everlys had reached in 1960.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More