Chart entered : 2 February 1985
Chart peak : 45
The Shalamar of 1985 was a very different beast from their debut hit eight years earlier. The studio project doing Motown covers had turned into a pop dance trio who had hits with original material. Original singer Gary Mumford bailed out soon after the release of the first LP to be replaced by Gerald Brown. It's often assumed , from their background as dancers that Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel didn't contribute much in the studio but Jeffrey is credited as the sole writer of the title track of their second LP "Shalamar's Disco Gardens". That yielded the transatlantic hit "Take That To The Bank". Gerald then departed after a business dispute with the group's founder Dick Griffey and was replaced by Howard Hewett, completing the classic line up. Their annus mirablis was undoubtedly 1982 when their "Friends " LP yielded four Top 20 hits , three of them going Top 10. "A Night To Remember" gave rise to an iconic Top of the Pops appearance when Jeffrey was invited to demonstrate his body popping techniques in a unique instance of an artist being allowed to dance to their own material without also lip-synching it.
The band were holed by the separate departures of Jeffrey and Jody in 1983 after conflicts with Dick and the record company. They were replaced by Micki Free , a Native American guitarist and singer from a rock background and singer and keyboardist Delisa Davis . These changes saw an immediate diminution in their chart placings in the UK ( although their 1984 single "Dancing In The Sheets" was the group's second biggest hit in the US where they were usually less popular ) this single being the fourth in a row to peak outside the Top 40.
"My Girl Loves Me " was written by Howard and Micki together with Rufus keyboard player David "Hawk" Wolinski. It was the third single from their 1984 album "Heartbreak" which hadn't charted in the UK just two years after the platinum success of "Friends". It shows a musical shift from the Chic influences on "Friends" to a harder-edged electro-funk sound to which Micki adds lashings of rock guitar. The new members probably added more as musicians to Howard's always on the money vocals and this is a perfectly competent piece of work but there is something missing here, perhaps a melody line to compare with "I Can Make You Feel Good" which would make it stand out from the pack.
One more single was taken from "Heartbreak", "Don't Get Stopped In Beverley Hills", a vacuous, repetitive dance rock number which was featured in the film Beverley Hills Cop.
They had one more single out in 1985 "Just One of the Guys " the theme song to a forgotten teen movie , a tuneless funk number that purloins the chords from 1999.
The group then suffered a mortal blow when Howard quit to launch a solo career. His departure so devalued the Shalamar brand they would have been better abandoning it but they recruited a new singer Sydney Justin and pressed on. In 1986 a greatest hits compilation reached number 5 in the UK and a remixed version of "A Night To Remember" got to number 52.
The new line up came up with the album "Circumstantial Evidence " in 1987 on which they had some heavyweight help. LA Reid and Babyface wrote songs for, played on and produced the album. First single "Games" very obviously rips off Cameo with Justin doing his best to imitate Larry Blackmon's gnarly voice. The second single was the title track which subjects Prince to the same treatment. The third single "I Want You ( To Be My Playthang )" is a tuneless electro throbber which is all production and no song. The album and first two singles made a mark on the R & B charts but nowhere else.
By the time of the final album "Wake Up " in 1990 even that was denied them. Abandoned by LA and Babyface the trio still tried to get in on some of the new jack swing action on tracks like the utterly formulaic single "Caution : This Love Is Hot " and a dire attempt at the Beatles' "Come Together" which proved to be the last Shalamar single in 1991.
In 1996 Babyface recorded a new hip hop version of "This Is For the Lover In You" , a track from their 1980 album "Three Into One" which featured contributions from all three members of the classic line up including appearing in the video ( although not together ). The single got to number 6 in the US and 12 in the UK and they did appear together to promote it on Top of The Pops. Babyface then opened negotiations for doing a full album with them but these eventually collapsed over money.
Three years later Jeffrey and Howard did reunite to tour as Shalamar, mainly in the UK and after trying out a number of female singers Dick Griffey's daughter Carolyn was made a permanent member. In 2005 they were runners up to Shakin' Stevens in the UK TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time. They continue to tour but as yet haven't returned to the studio.
Besides fronting the revived Shalamar, Howard has maintained a solo career that runs to eight studio albums . It got off to an interesting start when he and his fiance were arrested and charged with distributing cocaine. She went down but Howard was acquitted of all charges. Nevertheless Elektra signed him up and released his first four solo albums. He didn't stray too far from Shalamar's pop soul with occasional forays into gospel and singles like "Show Me" and "I'm For Real" achieved high placings on the R & B chart but a crossover hit in his own name would always elude him.
Elektra dropped him in 1994 and after one more soft soul album -1995's "It's Time" on Expansion Records - he turned to session singing on jazz records by the likes of George Duke, Joe Sample and The Rippingtons. His 2001 album "The Journey " was a full gospel album. He returned to soul with the album "If Only" in 2007 , trailed by a soporific single "Enough" produced by Duke. His most recent record to date was his Christmas collection "Howard Hewett Christmas " in 2008. He lives in L.A.
Jeffrey went straight into Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express playing the train Elektra . His song "AC/DC" , a rather dull electro-pop number was released as a single in 1984 but wasn't a hit. When his run in the show finished he relocated to Japan but was lured back to America by Michael Jackson to work as his choreographer. That subsequently became his bread and butter but he did make one solo record , the album "Skinny Boy" in 1990. I've only heard one other track besides the single "She's The Girl" which is competent contemporary R & B with an indifferent vocalist.
Jody's had the most successful solo career of the classic trio . It got off to a false start. She co-wrote her first single with Bruce Woolley who also produced alongside Gary Langan. "Where The Boys Are " , released in November 1984 under the name "Jody " is a synth pop number let down by her indifferent vocals and a very weak chorus. She was a somewhat unlikely participant in Band Aid through having just signed for the same label and had a brief fling with Duran's John Taylor as a result. Her second single "Girls Night Out " ( which I haven't heard ) did no better than the first and she returned to the US ( where neither single had been released ).
However Jody had not given up on the idea of solo fame and got a deal with MCA. She co-wrote most of her eponymous debut with former Prince bassist Andre Cymone. The first single "Looking For A New Love", catapulted her to number 2 in the US and number 13 here ( where it's the only one of her 8 solo hits anyone's likely to be able to name ). Today it sounds like a fairly unremarkable dance pop number with a very unremarkable singer but this was a year where neither Madonna nor Janet Jackson had a proper album out so I guess Jody got her timing spot on. The album spawned four more US hits including the execrable "Still A Thrill " where her attempt to do a deep vocal like The Pointer Sisters' Automatic is painfully amateur-ish. This led to a controversial Grammy Award for Best New Artist despite being nowhere near as "new" as the other nominees. Over here we were far more circumspect with only "Don't You Want Me" ( not The Human League classic but a forgettable Madonna clone ) making the chart at a lowly 55 and the album peaking at 62.
Still Jody's roll in the US continued with her next album "Larger Than Life" in 1989. The lead single "Real Love" ( a pretty effective dance pop number ) became her second number 2 hit there though it stalled outside the Top 30 here. The follow up "Friends " did slightly better here due to the presence of hot hip hop duo Eric B & Rakim as featured guests. It reached number 21. The album also did slightly better than its predecessor, reaching number 39. The ballad "Everything" scraped in at number 74 ( number 4 in the US ). " Precious Love" which rips off La Isla Bonita no end didn't chart at all.
With her third LP "Affairs of the Heart" , on which Cymone was only involved in half the tracks , Jody suffered a sharp contraction in sales with the album failing to make the Top 100. The house-flavoured "I'm The One You Need" was her last Top 20 hit in the US ( number 50 here ) . 1993's "Intimacy " went for a mellower groove and lead single "Your Love Keeps Working On Me" is a pleasant enough Soul II Soul shuffler . The only hit from it hear was the execrable "When A Man Loves A Woman"; if you're going to do a spoken word number in the vein of Madonna's Justify My Love , make sure it's got a decent lyric. The clunky AIDS reference is embarrassing. Somehow it got to number 33.
MCA dropped Jody and she set up her own label Avitone Records to release her fifth album "Affection" in 1995 . It only charted in Japan and didn't yield any hits. MCA released a "Greatest Hits " LP a year later which didn't chart. Neither did her 1998 LP " Flower" though it did contain her last hit single "Off The Hook" a run of the mill R & B number which made number 71 in the US and 51 here.
Since then, Jody's released three more LPs to minimal interest. The most recent one, 2006's "The Makeover" was all covers or re-recordings. Jody insists that her relations with Howard and Jeffrey are "cordial" but she's resisted invitations to reunite and once phoned a radio station to contest Howard's assertion that she "had issues". It's hard to swallow her claim to be "a creative visionary" but you can understand her not wanting to go back and be an employee again. In 2014 she launched her own version of Shalamar and released the single "Slow Dance" a rather dreary, synth-heavy , chill out tune.
So what of the bit players ? After Shalamar dissolved, Micki teamed up with Jean Bouvoir formerly of shock rockers The Plasmatics to form the hard rock outfit Crown of Thorns ( nothing to do with the British goth band of the eighties ). After two albums with them he went solo and has worked in the blues rock genre since with occasional forays into Native American flute music.
Delisa disappeared from the music business and is thought to be a hair stylist in L.A.
Gerald put out a couple of well-spaced singles "I'm Gonna Wear A Smile " in 1981 ( which I haven't heard ) and a competent electro-dance number, "Heart Breaker " in 1987. He has been mainly occupied by singing advertising jingles and fronting his own version of Shalamar, the Shalamar Revue Band.
Gary left the music business for the church and is now a pastor.
The group's co-founder Don Cornelius dropped out or was pushed ( Jody says he was thrown under the bus" ) early on . He eventually quit hosting the show Soul Train in 1993 largely due to suffering seizures after brain surgery in 1982. In 2008 he was convicted of spousal abuse and placed on probation. In his later years he was suffering extreme pain and committed suicide by shooting himself in 2012.
Aftr Shalamar folded , Dick got into hip hop and had a hand in founding Death Row Records giving studio time to Dr Dre. In 1997 he and another guy sued Dre and Suge Knight claiming they had been denied their rightful share of ownership and profits. He died in 2010 following heart surgery.
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