Journalist, Political Reporter, Cultural Critic, Editor/Proofreader
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr
FunkyTownGrooves,
August 2013
Norman Connors
Take It to the Limit
During the 1970s, a long list of jazz instrumentalists successfully reinvented themselves as R&B artists. Pianist/keyboardist George Duke hit big in the funk realm with his 1977 smoker “Reach For It.” Patrice Rushen, also a pianist/keyboardist, gained an abundance of new fans with her 1979 smash “Haven’t You Heard.” Roy Ayers, a masterful vibist who was influenced by Milt Jackson and Bobby Hutcherson, became better known for his funk and quiet storm hits than for the hardcore jazz he had played in the 1960s. And George Benson, once exalted as a master of hard bop guitar, found himself being compared to Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway rather than Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell or Grant Green.
Norman Connors is another musician whose name belongs on that list. The Philadelphia native started out as a jazz drummer and an instrumentalist before making R&B his main focus. But while Duke, Rushen, Ayers and Benson came to be recognized as R&B singers, Connors usually left the lead vocals to others. Occasionally, Connors would sing lead on his R&B-oriented albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But most of the time, Connors made his mark in R&B by finding great singers to feature—singers like Michael Henderson, Jean Carn and the late Phyllis Hyman. That approach proved advantageous for him: he scored major R&B hits by featuring Henderson and Carn on “Valentine Love” in 1975 and Henderson in 1976 on the haunting quiet storm ballad “You Are My Starship” (which became Connors’ biggest hit ever and reached #4 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart). Hyman, meanwhile, was featured on two Connors singles from 1976: “We Both Need Each Other” (a duet with Henderson) and a remake of Thom Bell & Linda Creed’s Philly soul favorite “Betcha By Golly Wow” (a big hit for the Stylistics in 1972). And when Take It to the Limit came out in 1980, Connors’ followers—many of them people he had converted after deemphasizing instrumental jazz—expected him to feature some fine vocal talent. Connors didn’t let them down.
Carn, Henderson and Hyman are not among the singers Connors features on Take It to the Limit; in 1980, all of them were busy with their solo careers. Carn was recording for Philadelphia International Records, Henderson enjoyed a major funk hit in 1980 with “Wide Receiver,” and Hyman was still getting a lot of mileage out of her 1979 single “You Know How to Love Me” (which British neo-soulster Lisa Stansfield covered in 1997). So Connors features four other lead singers on this album: Glenn Jones, Leon Ware, Al Johnson and Chicago-born Ada Dyer, a.k.a. Miss Adaritha.
The fact that Connors deemphasized instrumental jazz in the late 1970s and early 1980s doesn’t mean that he abandoned it altogether, and Take It to the Limit contains one pop-jazz instrumental: an interpretation of Steely Dan’s “Black Cow,” which features the late Freddie Hubbard on flugelhorn. Although Hubbard was best known for his trumpet playing, he played the flugelhorn as a second instrument—and he is instantly recognizable on “Black Cow.” Although “Black Cow” includes some background vocals, that selection is an instrumental for all intents and purposes. And Hubbard’s melodic flugelhorn playing is the main attraction.
The rest of the album, however, is decidedly vocal-oriented, and Connors keeps the vocal factor high by featuring Glenn Jones on “Melancholy Fire,” Johnson on “I Don’t Need Nobody Else,” Ware on “Everywhere Inside of Me” and Dyer on “You’ve Been on My Mind,” “Justify,” “You Bring Me Joy” and the title track. Dyer is the most prominent of the four vocalists; Connors had featured her extensively on 1979’s Invitation, and reuniting with her on Take It to the Limit (originally released by Arista Records) the following year was a wise move.
Thanks to the success of “Valentine Love,” “You Are My Starship” and “We Both Need Each Other,” Connors gained a reputation for being an important contributor to the quiet storm area of R&B. And, to be sure, there is a strong quiet storm factor on Take It to the Limit thanks to romantic ballads that include “You Bring Me Joy,” “Everywhere Inside of Me” and “You’ve Been On My Mind.” The medium-tempo offerings “Justify” and “Melancholy Fire” are not ballads, but their smooth, polished romanticism fits in perfectly with the quiet storm aesthetic.
Take It To the Limit has its funkier moments as well, and they include Johnson’s gritty performance on “I Don’t Need Nobody Else” and Dyer’s soaring disco-soul workout on the title track. Johnson sounds a bit like the late Willie Hutch, an excellent, if underrated, soul singer remembered for hits like 1975’s “Love Power” and 1973’s “Brothers Gonna Work It Out.”
By the mid-1980s, Glenn Jones had become one of the decade’s top quiet storm vocalists. His name was typically mentioned in the same sentence as Freddy Jackson, Anita Baker, Peabo Bryson and the late Luther Vandross. But when Connors featured him on “Melancholy Fire,” he had yet to become a big name in R&B. At that point, he was best known for singing lead with the Jacksonville, Florida-based gospel group the Modulations (not to be confused with the obscure, Durham, North Carolina-based soul group that recorded the 1975 Buddah release It’s Rough Out Here, which FunkyTownGrooves reissued in 2012). Jones’ performance on “Melancholy Fire” gives listeners a glimpse of things to come.
“Melancholy Fire” is heard twice on FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded edition of Take It to the Limit, which contains the version from Arista’s original 1980 LP as well as a 7” single version that is offered as a bonus track. Two mixes of the title song, a 7” single version and a 12” single version, are also offered as bonus tracks.
Connors showed himself to be quite flexible along the way. He entered the 1970s as a jazz instrumentalist but entered the 1980s as an R&B-oriented artist with a heavy emphasis on vocals. And on Take It to the Limit, that direction served him well.
—Alex Henderson, August 2013
Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, JazzTimes, Jazziz, AlterNet, Salon.com, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) has also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.
Copyright 2022 Alex V. Henderson. All rights reserved.
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr