Alex Henderson

Glenn Jones
Take It from Me  [Expanded Edition]

Some gospel stars managed to achieve crossover appeal despite their refusal to record secular music. Mahalia Jackson was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. The Rev. James Cleveland and Andraé Crouch have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Other gospel singers, however, achieved major recognition among secular audiences after making a conscious decision to record secular music. One of them is Glenn Jones.

The Jacksonville, Florida native, who was only 14 when he formed his own gospel group, the Modulations (not to be confused with a soul group from Durham, North Carolina that used the same name), had a major ally in James Cleveland, who produced their first album, With a Made Up Mind, for Savoy Records in 1978. Jones’ group went on to provide a second album, Feel the Fire, for Savoy in 1980, which was also the year in which Jones’ switch to secular music began. That year, Philadelphia jazz drummer turned R&B star Norman Connors featured Jones on his hit single, “Melancholy Fire.” Jones toured with Connors as a featured vocalist, and when he signed with RCA Records as a secular solo act, his transition to full-time R&B artist was complete. Jones’ debut solo EP, Everybody Loves a Winner, was released by RCA in 1983 and was followed in 1984 by his first full-length solo album, Finesse, which contained his first Top Five R&B hit “Show Me” (a #3 smash on Billboard’s R&B singles chart).

Jones became more and more identified with romantic ballads as the 1980s progressed, often inspiring comparisons to Freddie Jackson and the late Luther Vandross. But Take It from Me, which RCA released in 1986, offers a mixture of uptempo and romantic grooves. Jones’ funkier side asserts itself on “All Work, No Play,” while “Love Will Show Us How” (which the iconic Burt Bacharach co-wrote with David Foster and Michael Jay), the single “Stay” and “Giving Myself to You” (a #19 R&B hit in Billboard) underscore his proficiency with romantic ballads and slow jams.

The main producers on Take It from Me are songwriter and vocalist LaForest Cope, a.k.a. LaLa, and keyboardist/songwriter Hawk Wolinski, who is best known for the years he spent with Rufus & Chaka Khan. While LaLa produced “Stay” (which she wrote), “Love Will Show Us How,” “All Work, No Play” and the title track, Wolinski produced “Set the Night on Fire,” “Be My Lady,” “Giving Myself to You” (which he co-wrote with Jones) and “Dangerous.” LaLa played an important role in both Jones’ success and Whitney Houston’s: she wrote Jones’ secular breakthrough hit “Show Me” as well as Houston’s 1985 smash “You Give Good Love.” And in addition to writing “Stay,” LaLa wrote the title track and co-wrote “All Work, No Play” with Jones. FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded 2014 edition of Take It from Me boasts seven bonus tracks, which include alternate mixes of “Stay,” “Giving Myself to You” and “Set the Night on Fire.”

In a February 2014 interview, Jones remembered that Wolinski and LaLa were talented in different ways. “Hawk Wolinski was the kind of cat who was a little more into funky stuff and more uptempo stuff, whereas LaLa was definitely more of a ballad writer in those days,” Jones notes. “Hawk would do funk, Hawk would do rock & roll—while LaLa wrote great ballads like ‘You Give Good Love’ for Whitney Houston. Great record, great ballad. And ‘Show Me,’ which LaLa wrote, was really the record that established me as a secular artist. LaLa was a great writer and a great person to work with. She really appreciated my talent.”

Interviewed separately in March 2014, LaLa had fond memories of collaborating with Jones in the 1980s. LaLa met Jones through entertainment attorney/manager Louise C. West, who was quite familiar with LaLa’s work with the prolific singer, producer and songwriter Kashif.

“At the time, I already had a few years of co-production experience with Kashif,” recalls the New York City-based LaLa, who now works in academia and is a professor at York College in Queens. “Kashif was responsible for placing my songs on not only his debut album, but also, on albums by Melba Moore and, of course, Whitney. However, Louise thought it might be time for me to step from under his shadow and produce my own material. I was thrilled by the opportunity and rushed home to write a song especially for Glenn’s inimitable voice. That voice was in my head from the first time I heard it. There was only one song for that voice, and in my mind, that song was ‘Show Me.’”

LaLa also remembers getting a call from none other than Burt Bacharach, who co-wrote “Walk On By,” “The Look of Love,” “Wives and Lovers,” “What the World Needs Now” and many other 1960s favorites with his partner Hal David. “Burt Bacharach called me and told me he was a big fan of my work, and he contributed ‘Love Will Show Us How’,” LaLa explains. “It would be the first time I would produce a song not written by me. I told him ‘What the World Needs Now’ was the first pop song I ever learned how to play on the piano.’”

Now in his early fifties, Jones continues to enjoy a loyal following after all these years—and Take It from Me is among the Jones albums that easily withstands the test of time. Jones asserts: “When I go to Europe, I have people in the audience who are like 22, 23 years old and are loving the R&B that I’ve done over the years. I do what I do, and a lot of people appreciate it—including the younger generation. I think it’s about quality. There is music that’s timeless. You have artists like Stevie Wonder and all those great songs he wrote—how can you not like that? You can listen to the records that Jeffrey Osborne did with L.T.D. like ‘Concentrate on You’ or ‘We Both Deserve Each Other’s Love’—and it still grabs you. That’s why I stick with what I do even though music is constantly evolving.”

—Alex Henderson, March 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, Salon.com, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, 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.