Alex Henderson

Evelyn "Champagne" King
So Romantic  [Expanded Edition]

“Rock” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of Evelyn “Champagne” King, who hit big in the late 1970s with disco-soul classics like “Shame” and “I Don’t Know If It’s Right” and went on to record two excellent albums with the prolific R&B producer/songwriter Kashif (1981’s I’m in Love and 1982’s double platinum Get Loose, which boasted the #1 R&B smash “Love Come Down”). Yet 1984 and 1985 found King (born July 1, 1960) often experimenting with pop-rock elements, and on her seventh album, So Romantic, the Bronx-born singer did so without forgetting her R&B and dance music roots.

n the 1980s, it wasn’t uncommon for certain R&B artists to incorporate pop-rock. Famous examples included the Pointer Sisters on “Neutron Dance,” Irene Cara on “Why Me,” Michael Jackson on “Beat It” and Shalamar on “Dead Giveaway”—and Prince, of course, was as much of a rock star as he was an R&B star. King, similarly, sounds right at home incorporating pop-rock elements on much of So Romantic, which was originally released by RCA Records in 1984. From “Show Me (Don’t Tell Me),” “So in Love,” “Talking in My Sleep,” “Heartbreaker” (not be confused with Pat Benatar’s 1979 hit) and “I’m So Romantic” to the singles “Just for the Night” and “Out of Control,” this album is full of infectious, exuberant dance-funk grooves that have an appealing pop-rock edge.

 Not everything on So Romantic was recorded with the dance floor in mind: “Give Me One Reason” and the single “Till Midnight” both favor a comfortable medium tempo. But So Romantic on the whole is unapologetically danceable, and anyone who has spent a lot of time listening to the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money” or Shalamar’s “Dancing in the Sheets” should have no problem getting into this album.

“I listened to a lot of rock in the 1980s,” King, now 53, recalled during a November 2013 interview. “I listened to Bon Jovi. I listened to Poison. I listened to Aerosmith. I listened to Yes. I was listening to a lot of music that a lot of people didn’t expect me to have my ears plugged into. But if you have your own identity, you can do different things—and one of the things I appreciate about myself is having my own unique sound and style. I’m not trying to sound like anyone else.”

Earlier in her career, King was closely identified with specific producers. Producer/songwriter T. Life did a lot to shape her first three albums (Smooth Talk in 1977, Music Box in 1979 and Call on Me in 1980), while Kashif was the main producer on I’m in Love and Get Loose. But King adopted a multi-producer approach on 1983’s Face to Face and continued to work with a variety of producers on So Romantic. The producers on this album include David “Hawk” Wolinski (formerly of Chaka Khan’s band Rufus) on “Just For the Night” and “Till Midnight,” Jimmy Douglass on “Out of Control” and “Talking in My Sleep,” Evan Rogers & Carl Sturken on “Heartbreaker,” and the Clif Magness/Glen Ballard team on “Show Me (Don’t Tell Me)” and “Give Me One Reason.” Meanwhile, Mic Murphy & David Frank (who comprised the popular synth-funk duo The System) wrote and produced “So in Love” and “I’m So Romantic.”

“Some artists will work with the same producer for many years, and it always sounds the same,” King asserts. “But I was happy to move around. My feeling was, ‘OK, if this producer can bring something else to the table musically and show more of Evelyn’s vocals, then let’s go for it.’ Versatility is better, I think.”

Magness, interviewed separately in November 2013, has fond memories of working with King 29 years ago. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” Magness explains. “Evelyn was extremely gracious and very professional during our sessions. She had this cute thing she would do: she would really put her heart and soul into every vocal take, and after the take, she would look at those of us in the control booth as if to say, ‘How was it?’ She would do that after each take.”

As Magness sees it, the blend of dance-funk beats and pop-rock guitars on So Romantic was perfect for 1984—and he cites Michael Sembello’s 1983 smash “Maniac” (from the movie Flashdance) as one of his inspirations. Magness observes: “I think Michael Sembello did us all a service coming out with ‘Maniac’ 30 years ago. ‘Maniac’ was more of an electronic dance track, but it had that rockin’ guitar solo—and it gave a lot of people a kind of dance/rock style for the time. I think that ‘Show Me, Don’t Tell Me’ has that type of dance/rock style, and ‘Give Me One Reason’ also has a rockin’ edge. I was actually a rocker before I met Glen Ballard and started doing R&B.”

Although many of King’s hardcore fans consider So Romantic to be one of her best albums, it wasn’t the commercial smash that Smooth Talk, I’m in Love and Get Loose were. So Romantic stalled at #38 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart in the United States, and “Just for the Night” reached #16 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart. “Out of Control,” meanwhile, was more of a club hit than a radio hit, reaching #14 dance and #54 R&B in Billboard. And “Till Midnight” was a minor hit that made it to #57 R&B in Billboard. But again, So Romantic is held in high regard by King’s hardcore fans, who will be happy to know that FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded 2013 edition contains eight bonus tracks (which include the instrumental and 7” single versions of “Just for the Night,” a remix of “Out of Control” and dub and a cappella versions of “Till Midnight.”

“When I was bouncing around and doing different things on my albums, I think it shocked RCA,” King explains. “I think it was a shock for the label that I was capable of doing all those different things. But I had fun recording So Romantic and working with those different producers and writers. And when I listen to So Romantic, I know I had fun because I can hear it in my vocals.”

—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.