GAP BAND IV: A POST-SOUL CLASSIC DROPS DURING THE DAWN OF THE GREAT BLACK POP TAKEOVER

                                                       

            "One nation under a groove/nothing can stop us now"
                                      ----Funkadelic (1978)

Charlie Wilson is R&B’s ultimate ironman. One year shy of 70, he’s still bobbing and weaving between post-modern R&B and adult contemporary weight classes selling out arenas on The Culture Tour with New Edition and Jodeci. Wilson's latest single Ain’t No Stoppin Us featuring Ki-Ci, Babyface, and Johnny Gill----arrived last month. 

Less you think that Wilson's string of 13 #1 adult contemporary R&B hits (from 2000 to 2018) and numerous Grammy nominations were built on his Snoop Dogg/R. Kelly affiliations---travel back to back to May 17, 1982, when he and his group the Gap Band dropped the summer's hottest album during R&B 's transitional year.

In '82 nothing was bigger than Gap Band IV. #1 for nine weeks, Gap IV sold over a million copies becoming  R&B's only platinum R&B album of that year. 

Gap IV would continue the band's ascent that began in February '79's with top 5 debut single  Shake. Gold-selling follow-up Gap Band II would arrive in stores nine months later featuring international smash Oops Upside Your Head (I Don't Believe You Wanna Get Up and Dance) Six months later in winter '80---platinum-seller Gap Band III's singles Burn  Rubber and Yearning For Your Love pushed the album to #1 for six weeks in '81. 

Retreating back to the studio that year, the group curated killer moments of their live performances. 

Gone were the brassy Earth Wind and Fire ("Are You Living") signatures and Stevie containing an air of familiarity. Stay With Me and Lonely Like Me revisited Yearnin' For Your Love's mid-tempo groove. R&B /countrified hybrid 

where nearly every song became radio staples. 

that was a sequel of sorts to their previous work.

Yearnin' For Your Love's mid-tempo groove turned up on Stay with Me and Lonely Like Me.  Countrified /R&B hybrid Season's No Reason To Change was in the vein of early GAP album tracks like The Boys Are Back In Town and Sweet Caroline were throwbacks from the Wilsons' early touring days as proteges of country/rocker singer-songwriter Leon Russell (A Song For You ). The soulful Can't Get Over You featured Charlie's passionate vocals and older brother Ronnie's muted flugelhorn.

It would be a trio of hits that would give Gap IV its potency: Early in The Morning, You Dropped A Bomb On Me, and Outstanding. 

Recycling  Burn Rubber's studio sound effects and lyrical themes, Early In The Morning   (#1 R&B)  and You Dropped A Bomb  On Me (#2 R&B)  continued th were instant hits sailing to # lyrics and the group's Tulsa, Oklahoma roots spawned the urban legend that the song was inspired by the Black Wall Street riots. The song was really about a relationship between a sixteen-year-old guy and the twenty-five-year-old woman who blew his mind in the bedroom.

 

By now, the group had shifted its visual focus from a 10-man roster to installing the brother as visual centerpieces. 

Older brother Ronnie played horns/keyboards and was the group's leader. Baby brother Robert was on bass. Lead singer/keyboardist and melody point man Charlie was the Gap Band's secret weapon. 

 Filtering his church-honed vocals through the lens of idols Sly Stone, Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. 

 During the Gap Band's run, funk was anchored by many signature voices. There was seminal Ohio Player frontman Sugarfoot Bonner whose growl (oww!!!) was copied by Larry Dodson (The Bar-Kays), Larry Blackmon (Cameo), and Michael Cooper (Con Funk Shun). 

 Cooper and partner Felton Pilate had a one-two tenor/falsetto punch just as potent as Earth Wind and Fire's Maurice White and Philip Bailey (Earth Wind and Fire). Slave's stellar funk was powered by drummer Steve Arrington's percussive scats but it would be Wilson's charismatic vocal swagger that would influence the next decade of contemporary male soul singers.

Avoiding the anonymity plaguing funk bands limping into the early 80s visual medium---the Wilsons' flamboyant rhinestone urban cowboy-inspired getup played up their Tulsa, Oklahoma roots, setting them apart from a sea of spandex and space suits worn by peers like the Bar-Kays and the Commodores.

Backed up by a cadre of crack musicians, the band's communal creative process bore gold and platinum fruit. Drummer Raymond Calhoun and band director Oliver Scott's hands wrote/co-wrote Outstanding and Yearnin' For Your Love. 

limping towards gold was a testament to the record's quality. Lead single Early In Morning was #1 for three weeks. Follow up You Dropped A Bomb on Me peaked at #2.  Both songs ventured deep into the upper reach of the pop charts. 

A third single---Outstanding---duplicated the success of its predecessors,  hitting the top spot early the following year, breaking up Michael Jackson's bid for back-to-back consecutive #1 singles as Thriller began its run at chart dominance.

                                                                  

                                                              
                                                     

                                              

                                                 







                                       

                                                                 

Sellout tour dates and TV appearances followed. Videos were in heavy rotation. Gap Band songs appeared on pop radio. A Charlie Wilson solo album was on the horizon. The Wilson Brothers should have been on top of the world. The reality was that they were no more than indentured servants on a record label run by a manager who owned their publishing, royalties, and tour revenue. In his 2015 autobiography I Am Charlie Wilson, the band's lead singer painfully reflects on the era:

"We released nine albums and were broke. We would go out on the road and then come off what we thought was a successful tour and [our manager] would say we owed him three million dollars. My brothers and I would sell out coliseums yet when the show was over and I'd given the audience all I had, I found myself barely with a penny to my name. I would sit in the corner and cry but he (manager Lonnie Simmons) seemed unmoved. There were many nights that he would simply toss a $125 per diem and keep it moving leaving us barely with enough to buy food."

                                                               

Already flirting with substance abuse, the group's inability to enjoy the trappings of their success plunged the brothers into a drug-fueled depression as they were experiencing their greatest success. 

As Outstanding was making its way up the charts in late '82, a series of hit albums would soon hit the market, officially kicking off The Great Black Pop Takeover.  

Marvin Gaye finally moved out of Rick James and Teddy Pendergrass’ shadow with Midnight Love. 

Sultry first single Sexual Healing was the first R&B song to feature sounds from the TR-808 drum machine, inspiring classic imitations like The Isley Brothers’ Between the Sheets and Mtume’s Juicy Fruit. 

Edged out by Stevie Wonder and Lou Rawls during his 70s album run, Gaye would finally win his coveted Grammy---a satisfying dream turned premature and fatal nightmare 12 months later.

                                                                  

Gaye's ex-Motown labelmate Lionel Richie followed up his songwriting side hustle with a trilogy of albums---Lionel Richie, Can't Slow Down, and Dancing on The Ceiling. Moving on from funk brothers The Commodores, Richie's rapid ascent to pop star status returned Motown to its past glory.

For four years Prince would wander in the creative wilderness, cribbing Rick James' punk-funk swagger one moment and flaunting pop, rock, and new wave styles the next. Settling into a commercial formula, the sprawling 1999 album made him a superstar. Instead of resting on his laurels, he quickly released four albums in as many years. Along with his other side projects. Prince’s prolific work would make him an undisputed contender for the artist of the decade.

                                                                       

                                                                        

Rebounding from the industry's tepid response to Off the Wall, Michael Jackson returned with Thriller and pulled the record industry back from the brink. Moving into space rarely occupied by Black performers, Jackson orchestrated the Great Black Pop Takeover and raised the stakes for Black music in terms of sales and artistic presentation.

Despite another gold album and several more hits, the Gap Band never duplicated the success of Gap Band IV. They limped through the decade stuck in contractual peonage while many of their peers thrived. Kool and The Gang become the biggest-selling band of the decade. Funk rivals Cameo seized the funk crown, smoothly changing with the times releasing seven years of gold albums before finally striking platinum with their own version of Gap Band IV---Word Up. Late-eighties acts artists emulated and sampled Gap Band grooves. Aaron Hall. R. Kelly and others rode Charlie's gospel-hinged melisma to success.

Cameo:1976

Cameo: 1981

Cameo: 1982

Cameo: 1987

In a strange twist of fate, Charlie Wilson returned with new solo success that surpassed that of his peers and those who came after. Thirty five years after The Great Black Pop Takeover, Black music is still stuck on the under card, fending off shrinking outlets, culture vultures and industry final counts---bobbing and weaving between youthful post-modern R&B and adult contemporary weight classes.

This time its Wilson who is the R&B main event: 12 #1 hits. Recording songs with hip hop and R&B 's contemporary stars, racking up awards and selling out shows---three years shy of seventy years old. Rick James, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and Prince succumbed to their addictions and struggles. 

Fate was much kinder for Wilson. Ascending from the ashes of addiction and homelessness, he orchestrated a triumphant career comeback and restored his legacy back to its rightful place. Besides his chock-full of solo hits, Wilson concert staples include outstanding songs from a seminal album still blowing audiences minds and knocking them out.

                 

Robert Wilson: 1956-2010