Alex Henderson

Diana Ross
Red Hot Rhythm & Blues  [Deluxe Expanded Edition)

Diana Ross entered the 1980s signed to Motown Records and ended the 1980s signed to Motown Records. But for most of that decade, the R&B/pop superstar and former Supremes vocalist was signed to RCA Records in the United States—and her RCA period was a productive one that included some gold and platinum albums and boasted collaborations with major-league producers like Richard Perry, Ray Parker, Jr., Arthur Baker, Bernard Edwards and the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibbs. Ross’ RCA period started with 1981’s Why Do Fools Fall in Love and concluded with 1987’s Red Hot Rhythm & Blues, an album produced by Tom Dowd (who crossed paths with countless rock and soul legends during his years with Atlantic Records) and occasionally, Luther Vandross (easily the top male quiet storm vocalist of the 1980s). And with their help, Ross delivered an album that is at times nostalgic and at times relevant to the urban contemporary scene of 1987.

Ross reached #12 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart in the U.S. with the funky, infectious “Dirty Looks,” a song that had previously been recorded by the synth-funk group Warp 9. Ross is equally mindful of 1987 tastes on the danceable “Shine” (written by Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall), the vibrant single “Shockwaves” and the quiet storm ballads “Tell Me Again” and “It’s Hard for Me to Say” (written and produced by Vandross). Yet a nostalgic mood prevails on other parts of Red Hot Rhythm & Blues thanks to several soul and doo wop covers, and Ross recalls her work with the Supremes on inspired performances of the Drifters’ 1959 smash “There Goes My Baby,” the Bobbettes’ 1957 hit “Mr. Lee” and Jackie Ross’ 1964 hit “Selfish One.” While “Selfish One” is the essence of northern sweet soul, Ross acknowledges the rugged, hard-edged soul of Memphis and Muscle Shoals with her version of Clarence Carter’s “Tell Mama” (a #10 R&B hit for Etta James in 1968).

This reissue expands Red Hot Rhythm & Blues to a two-CD set. The second CD is devoted exclusively to bonus material, which includes four versions of “Dirty Looks” (one of them instrumental), three versions of “Shockwaves” and three versions of “Mr. Lee.”

 “Summertime” (not to be confused with the George Gershwin standard) is a sultry, jazz-tinged song by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson, while “Stranger in Paradise” (written by John Capek and Canadian singer/songwriter Amy Sky) has strong pop-rock leanings and shouldn’t be confused with the standard from the musical Kismet. Interviewed in August 2014, Capek remembered that when Ross included “Stranger in Paradise” on this album, he was delighted even though he didn’t think of his song as hardcore R&B.

“The interesting thing for me about the title Red Hot Rhythm & Blues is that ‘Stranger in Paradise’ is not an R&B song really,” Capek reflects. “I wouldn’t call ‘Stranger in Paradise’ red hot rhythm & blues by any means. It’s a very medium-energy pop song. But I liked the song, and I liked what Diana did with it.”

Red Hot Rhythm & Blues boasts a long list of studio heavyweights that includes, among others, Eric Gale on guitar, Joseph Joubert and Richard Tee on keyboards, Steve Ferrone (formerly of the Average White Band) and Steve Gadd on drums and percussion, and Lani Groves, Jocelyn Brown and Dennis Collins on background vocals. During an August 2014 interview, Collins stressed that working with fellow Detroit native Ross on Red Hot Rhythm & Blues and two of her subsequent albums is one of his fondest memories. Collins asserts: “I’m from Detroit, Michigan. The reason I became a musician was Motown Records and all the great things that you had growing up in Detroit—and Diana Ross & the Supremes were part of Motown and part of Detroit. So to finally move to New York, work on my craft as hard as I could and get a call to sing on a Diana Ross album was the biggest thrill of my life. I talked about Detroit with Diana during that session for Red Hot Rhythm & Blues, and she even gave me a nickname during that session: there was a high part that I sang with the girls, and she called me Boy Air. I could have melted to the floor that Diana Ross had a conversation with me and gave me a nickname.”

Joubert, during an August 2014 interview, had an interesting anecdote about Ross. In 1986, Ross recorded an album paying tribute to the iconic Tin Pan Alley songwriter Harold Arlen—and arranger Paul Riser hired Joubert to help with the arranging. That album, for whatever reason, was never released. But Ross liked Joubert’s work on the Arlen tribute enough to hire him for Red Hot Rhythm & Blues the following year.

Joubert recalls: “Paul Riser was the orchestrator, but he got backed up and hired me to do an arrangement of Harold Arlen’s ‘Over the Rainbow.’ Diana recorded with a big orchestra, and it was a whole album of Harold Arlen songs—she also recorded ‘It’s Only a Paper Moon,’ ‘Come Rain or Come Shine,’ ‘‘Out of This World’ and I’ve Got the World on a String.’ To this day, I don’t know why they never released that album. But because of that album, I wound up doing Red Hot Rhythm & Blues.”

Also interviewed in August 2014 was arranger/keyboardist John “Skip” Anderson, who remembered that when Vandross produced “It’s Hard for Me to Say,” the late quiet storm icon insisted that the production sound organic rather than mechanical. Anderson recalls: “Luther Vandross had a lot of lines he wouldn’t cross. One of them was that he used to say, ‘I don’t write songs about sex. I write songs about love, and those songs will always be popular.’ Another was the way he used technology. Luther admired the latest technology that was available, and he used synthesizers. But he didn’t use them just to use them. He used them to enhance the production, and he wanted them to sound human.”

Ross returned to Motown in 1989 with the Nile Rodgers-produced Workin’ Overtime. And her association with RCA clearly ended on a memorable note with Red Hot Rhythm & Blues.

—Alex Henderson, August 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, 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, 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 popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.