WORD UP! 35: BY SHELDON TAYLOR

                                                                

                                                               

                                                                                                                 

Cameo's platinum-selling Word Up! turns 35 this week. Casual fans and newcomers may consider them one-album wonders but longtime Cameo devotees recognize the record as the group's crowning achievement after over a decade of delivering hits. 

In the 70s, Cameo was one of many funk bands on the horizon lodged between the twin pillars Parliament-Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire.Featuring a fierce rhythm and horn section fronted by revolving lead vocalists from tenor Anthony Lockett, falsetto and the baritone growl of group leader Larry Blackmon, the band spun off initial hits between 1977-1978. 

Hitting their stride with '79's Secret Omen, Cameo's first gold album saw them move away from the traditional sound of their contemporaries. Ever year they would up the ante, spinning off a succession of gold albums nearly every year between 1979-1982: Cameosis, Keep It Hot, Knights of the Sound Table and Alligator Woman.

Despite selling millions of albums, the band's touring overhead kept them in the red, prompting Blackmon to trim down the roster over the years. By '83 only core members Tomi Jenkins, Nathan Leftenant, and Charlie Singleton remained with support a revolving door of ex-group members and guest musicians. 

Uprooting from their East Coast roots and heading south, Cameo was one of the first Black acts (along with Peabo Bryson) to migrate to Atlanta decades before contemporary 90s/2000s R&B/rap groups. The name of Blackmon's new record label cemented the band's new move: Atlanta Artists.

 Retooling their sound with each album---Cameosis, Keep It Hot and Knights of the Sound Table left the P-Funk posturing behind for good. Dodging the horny anonymity plaguing peers like Brass Construction. Lean angular funk, animated vocals and falsetto accents set them apart from the pack.  Alligator Woman's clever songwriting, 3-D vocal animation, swaggering funk with a trace of Chic, the B-52s and Devo equals the best Black rock and roll White America never heard.

 '83's Style (billed as 21st Century Be-Bop) broke up the group's winning streak but by '84 Cameo was back in the saddle with the gold-selling She's Strange. Marrying punk, rock, rap and reggae with witty tongue-in-cheek humor, perfect pitch harmonies and Larry Blackmon's nasal baritone---for 35 minutes they thumb their noses at presidents ("Tricky  Dick/Ford too/Jimmy Mack Carter/Ronnie Reagan too"), big-up Bob Marley, deliver motivational anthems in French/Haitian patois, lament lost love and celebrate unconventional beauty ("she's strange---but I like it!"). 

Compact and cerebral, Cameo became R&B's answer to the Police.

 Cameo kept things rolling with an uninterrupted durability. 85's Single Life moved a half-million copies while extending their run of hit singles and the music videos became more ambitious. In '86, there was still enough gas in the tank for another run.

 Unfortunately, the same wouldn't be the same for their peers. Industry preoccupation with solo acts, emerging technology and younger consumer market wiped out the funk band genre like a cyclone.

Securing a bigger budget from PolyGram Records, the third installment in their trilogy of Black funk rock was an out-the-box hit. After six gold-selling base hits in seven years, they finally delivered a platinum grand slam. During the year of MTV, Run-D.M.C. and Janet Jackson---Cameo would carve out its own lane in popular music.

 Tongue-in-check as ever, they flip off sucker dj's with their own code word ("Word Up!"), explore relationships ("Back and Forth") and savor beauty's sweetness ("Candy") and these are just the hits. "You Can Have The World" is vibrant. "Fast Fierce and Funny's"pokes fun at 80s materialism ("I tried to romance you/ and I tried real world/ every thing was going good/until they took my credit card") and ballad "Don't Be Lonely" plays it straight. 

The secret to album's success lies in the band's sleek avant-garde look, their ability to move into another musical gear, strong song craft, and slick music videos that played up their visual style and charisma. Word Up! transformed the band into a pop group. National and international tours followed. The group would also did the late-night talk show circuit. 

Today, the kind of music Cameo makes is a lost art. Because Black music history is rarely explored beyond mid-Eighties pop moments (Thriller, Purple Rain, etc), Cameo's musical  contributions have become lost with time. Thankfully Word Up!'s  potent durability holds up after three decades. Let's hope that it becomes a gateway of exploration to Cameo's other masterworks.

 

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