Alex Henderson

Evelyn "Champagne" King
Call on Me [Expanded Edition]

It would be difficult to overstate how important producer/songwriter Theodore Life, a.k.a. T. Life, was to the career of Evelyn “Champagne” King. When a teenage King first met the Jacksonville, Florida native in the 1970s in his adopted home of Philadelphia—where he had played with an early version of Maze & Frankie Beverly (back when they were called Raw Soul) and written songs for the likes of the Intruders, Instant Funk and Bunny Sigler—she had yet to become famous. The Bronx-born King and her mother were working as office cleaners at Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International Records, and Life heard King singing in the washroom. Life liked what he heard, coached King and signed her to his production company, Galaxy Productions; it wasn’t long before King had a contract with RCA Records and Life produced her debut album, Smooth Talk, which came out in 1977 (the year King, who was born on July 1, 1960, turned 17).

Smooth Talk made King a star, selling more than one million copies in the United States and reaching #8 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart. Fueling the album’s success were two disco-soul classics: “Shame” and “I Don’t Know If It’s Right,” both of which reached the top 10 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart (“Shame” also hit #9 on the Billboard Hot 100). And in 1979, Life was the main producer on King’s sophomore album, Music Box, which was certified gold in the U.S. by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of more than half a million. Then, in 1980, Life was the main producer/arranger on King’s third album, Call on Me.

Stalling at #58 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart, Call on Me wasn’t as commercially successful as King’s two previous albums. But it did contain one minor hit: the danceable “Let’s Get Funky Tonight,” which reached #34 R&B in Billboard. And creatively, King achieved solid results with the help of Life, who co-wrote that single as well as “Talk Don’t Hurt Nobody” (another dance-funk groove), the mid-tempo “Your Kinda Lovin’” and the soul ballad “I Need Your Love.” However, “Just a Little Bit of Love” was written by Brian & Eddie Holland (who had been two-thirds of the legendary Holland/Dozier/Holland team at Motown Records), and “Bedroom Eyes” was written by William Seidman and Christine Faith. “Bedroom Eyes” and two songs that Life co-wrote (“Universal Girl” and the title track) favor a funk-rock approach, which came as quite a surprise to those who thought of King as a disco diva back in 1980.

In retrospect, King wonders if perhaps Call on Me underperformed commercially because it was a little too adventurous for RCA. During a November 2013 interview, King (who is now 53), recalled: “I was really proud of Call on Me. I thought it was a very good album, and I was surprised that it didn’t get more attention. But it’s all in the marketing. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Maybe it was the sound: T. Life was a risk-taker, and Call on Me had a different sound from Smooth Talk or Music Box. Call on Me went to everything: pop, rock, R&B, everything. And having an album that had everything on it might have been confusing for the label.”

In addition to the eight songs that appeared on the original 1980 LP, FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded edition of Call on Me offers five bonus tracks: the 12” version of “Let’s Get Funky Tonight” and four rarities from the ultra-obscure Sweet Delight LP (“Long Time Waiting on You,” “I Love You,” “Is It Good” and “Sweet Delight”). In a sense, Call on Me was King’s fourth album instead of her third: back in 1980, RCA originally planned for Sweet Delight to be King’s third album. But Sweet Delight was pulled from distribution almost immediately and reworked as Call on Me, which contained four songs that had been on Sweet Delight (“Bedroom Eyes,” “Talk Don’t Hurt Nobody,” “Universal Girl” and “Just a Little Bit of Love”) and four that hadn’t (“Let’s Get Funky Tonight,” “Your Kinda Lovin,’” “Call on Me” and “I Need Your Love”). Sweet Delight was so rare that many of King’s fans don’t even know that it existed, and hard-to-find copies have been known to sell for hundreds of dollars or pounds on the Internet.

King bounced back commercially after Call on Me, recording two albums with producer/songwriter Kashif: 1981’s gold I’m in Love and 1982’s double platinum Get Loose. On both of those albums, King was listed as simply Evelyn King rather than Evelyn “Champagne” King—although “Champagne” was re-added with the release of her Face to Face album in 1983.

“I never took the name ‘Champagne’ out,” King stresses. “I was on the road in 1981, and RCA took the name out without me knowing. They didn’t even ask. I got back from being on the road and saw Evelyn King instead of Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King on my I’m in Love album. This is what I heard from RCA: they thought that Evelyn King sounded more grown-up. And I was like, ‘What? My mom, me and T. Life came up with that name together.’ Champagne sounds more mature, and it felt comfortable in the middle of Evelyn King. So I said, ‘Put it back. This name is how I got my start, this is how it’s going to remain.’ And I’m still Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King to this day.”

After all these years, King and Life haven’t lost touch. “When T. Life first brought me on the scene, he was like a big brother and a dad,” King explains. “We’re still best buddies, and he’s still writing, producing and playing his guitar. And he still talks to me as though I’m 16. It makes me laugh sometimes. I have to say, ‘See, I’m not a child anymore. Stop talking like that.’ When we’re on the phone, we have a laugh a minute.”

King’s most recent album is 2007’s Open Book, and in 2013, she finds herself performing for both long-time fans and newer fans. “Thank God I have a good fan base,” King asserts. “I’m not stopping. I’m still performing, and I’m still working my butt off.”

—Alex Henderson, November 2013

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Salon.com, AlterNet, 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, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.