Some Unusual Musical Performers from the 80's and 90's

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(I’ve focused so much on politics for so long that my readers have probably forgotten that I have other interests, too!  (Remember that I called the election for Obama as far back as August, but hey, it wasn’t based on science, so much as just my hunches, and what are my hunches worth, given that we don’t even have TV?  Humph.)

Back in the Seventies, there was a character called Rick James.  I just couldn’t see what made him so special, but then there were oddball acts before him, some of which I actually liked, for instance Nino Tempo and April Stevens, which I have just this minute learned were a brother and sister act, who knew?  Jeeze. The song I loved most from them was “I can’t go on living, baby, without you,” which is, I suppose, better than a title such as “In the course of human events.”

Anyhow, Rick James had this hit called Super Freak, which would have been allowed to peacefully slip into oblivion if not for the fact that M. C. Hammer, of all people, sampled it for his mega-hit “Can’t Touch This.”  Rick James was a big, gangly fellow with horrible greased curls and an unlikely face, marginally uglier than Little Richard, who might have looked perfectly normal but for having adopted an eccentric personality and makeup. The Beatles --especially Paul McCartney-- admired Little Richard, and covered his signature song Long Tall Sally.

Still, why should popular musicians be condemned for not being attractive? Some of my best friends are as ugly as sin.

Another performer, about whom I’ve written before, is El DeBarge of the UK.  This man is quite handsome, but his voice sounds like a woman, though it has sounded a little less so over the years.  His specialty was long, slow romantic ballads such as “All this love is waiting for you,” which is a lovely thought. (Someone else’s love might have headed off to Alaska.)

Simply Red, about whom I’ve also written before, was a music group, I’m told, from Scotland, of all places.  No, scratch that: they're from Manchester.  The lead singer was a red-haired, freckled gentleman (Mick Hucknall) who was barely out of his teens in the eighties when their song “Holding back the years” (I’ll keep holding on) first hit the charts.  The videos on MTV usually showed just this singer, with perhaps various models.  (Honestly, I do not know what the members of his group might have looked like, and they might easily be in the videos.) Wikipedia has an interesting article on the band, Simply Red, and a separate article on the lead singer, Mick, as mentioned earlier, Hucknall.  We learn there that Hucknall and some others formed a band before Simply Red, called the Frantic Elevators, which released Holding Back the years (the link above is to that version), we we can clearly hear how Hucknall honed his craft over the years, so that by the time it was re-released in the Eighties, not only was the sound and the style different, his singing was a lot more controlled and mature.  Evidently, he went on to reassemble a band called the Faces, taking the place of their original lead singer, Rod Stewart, as it turns out.

Well, that’s good.  His was too good a voice to lose.

Another great singer from the Eighties --and before, as it turns out-- is Rickie Lee Jones, whose hit Chuck E’s in Love, crossed over into the pop charts. For all I know, Ms Jones is still singing, even if off the charts.

One of the most respected --even if confusing-- performers and musicians of the eighties was the one who was  famously called Prince at that time.  His movie Purple Rain was greatly celebrated at the time of its release, even if it was a little too sexually violent for some viewers of that time.  Not only was Prince a gifted performer, he was also a brilliant arranger and record producer, and produced records for a number of gifted artists of the time, one of whom was Sheila E.

The image here shows Sheila E as she was a few years ago.  The photo captures the delight she is clearly feeling, to be performing in front of an audience.  The inset shows her as she was in the late seventies and early eighties; it seems sultry, even pensive or brooding, a mood you never saw in the Sheila E performing live.

Sheila E was, first and foremost, a percussionist.  Her live appearances on TV were highly entertaining to watch, and not having my ear to the musical ground, I don’t know what happened to her once she passed from the circle of top acts in Pop, but I remember a song by her called The Glamorous Life, and that is the memory of her that persists.  Warning: the video below pretty much has to be viewed on a desktop; it probably will not come through on a mobile device!  View it at maximum resolution!


I remember her as a lovely woman, beautiful in her youth, and full of a irrepressible girlish charm.  She obviously wanted to be a big star; the song is clearly autobiographical.  An easy search will turn up a much more recent, High-Definition video clip taken recently in San Francisco.  Except for a few more pounds, the high-energy and ebullient spirits have survived the two intervening decades.  Wikipedia chronicles her progress in the years since she parted with Prince and his band.
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