![]() ![]() “ Jessie’s Girl” hit #1 in 1981 after Rick Springfield joined the show’s cast. Herb Alpert’s “ Rise” got to #1 in 1979 after showing up in multiple General Hospital episodes. And yet a song could blow the fuck up just by being associated with General Hospital. Were that many people really watching this soap opera every single day? Didn’t people have to work? VCRs were still luxury goods back then, so I don’t think too many people were taping the shows and then coming home to watch them. ![]() I’ll confess that I don’t quite understand how General Hospital managed to have such an impact on the charts in the ’70s and early ’80s. When it was first released as a single in April 1982, “Baby, Come To Me” peaked at #73 before dropping off of the Hot 100. “Do You Love Me?” missed the Hot 100 entirely, and “Every Home Should Have One” peaked at #55. The first two were both sophisticated mid-tempo dance-pop songs, and neither did much damage on the Hot 100. “Baby, Come To Me” was the album’s third single. Initially, that’s what happened with “Baby, Come To Me.” Austin released her Quincy Jones-produced album Every Home Should Have One in the fall of 1981. Especially in the days when MTV wasn’t playing Black artists or ballads, singers like Patti Austin and James Ingram would do well on the R&B charts, but they’d barely cause a ripple on the Hot 100. Many of its biggest stars, like Anita Baker and Luther Vandross, only rarely crossed over to the pop charts, especially in the genre’s early-’80s heyday. Quiet storm was aspirational music, slick and warm and heavily orchestrated. Both of them came out of quiet storm, the lush and tender R&B subgenre that was the default sound of Black radio in the early ’80s. (“ One Hundred Ways,” an Ingram-sung track from The Dude, peaked at #14 it remains Quincy Jones’ highest-charting single as a lead artist.) Austin and Ingram made sense together. That’s how Quincy Jones heard him.īoth Austin and Ingram sang on Jones’ 1981 album The Dude, and both of them signed to Jones’ Qwest label. ( I love that movie.) Ingram didn’t really think of himself as a singer, but he did have a side hustle singing on demos. For a little while, he was in the Revelation Band, the group that plays in the low-budget 1975 blaxploitation classic Dolemite. After going to the University Of Akron on a track scholarship, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a keyboardist for artists like Ray Charles. James Ingram was about the same age as Patti Austin, but he’d had even less success before the two of them hit #1 together. She’d been one of the backing singers, for instance, on “ 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” the Paul Simon song that hit #1 in 1976. Most of the time, Austin made her living singing commercial jingles or doing backup session work. The quincy austin tv#and sang on a handful of TV variety shows.Īustin released a good number of singles in the ’60s and ’70s, and some of them made the R&B charts, but none of them crossed over to the Hot 100. As a child, she toured with previous Number Ones artist Sammy Davis, Jr. At age five, she sang at the Apollo Theater after Dinah Washington brought her onstage. Austin, the daughter of the jazz trombonist Gordon Austin, was born in Harlem and raised on Long Island. ![]() Jones always claimed that he was Patti Austin’s godfather, though I don’t know whether he ever had the official title. (It’s a 9.) Both Austin and Ingram came by their Jackson connections because of Quincy Jones. James Ingram, along with Quincy Jones, co-wrote Jackson’s Thriller single “ PYT (Pretty Young Thing),” which peaked at #10. Patti Austin duetted with Jackson on “It’s The Falling In Love,” a deep cut from Off The Wall. Patti Austin and James Ingram had their own Michael Jackson connections, too. Jackson himself didn’t directly have anything to do with “Baby, Come To Me,” but there’s still something cosmically appropriate about “Baby, Come To Me” hitting #1 just before the Thriller wave finally crashed over the pop charts. That one is a 9.) Many of the session musicians who played on “Baby, Come To Me” - Greg Phillinganes, Michael Boddicker, David Foster, Paulinho da Costa, Toto’s Steve Lukather - also played on Michael Jackson’s album Thriller. Temperton also wrote Jackson’s 1984 single “ Thriller,” which peaked at #4. (Heatwave’s highest-charting single, 1977’s “ Boogie Nights,” peaked at #2. Songwriter Rod Temperton, former keyboardist for the British disco-funk group Heatwave, had written “ Rock With You,” the Michael Jackson song that hit #1 in 1980. ![]() Almost everyone involved in “Baby, Come To Me” had something to do with Michael Jackson. ![]()
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