Leon Ware is one of those great 70s soul-funk artists - like Roy Ayers and to a certain extent, Curtis Mayfield - whose impact is being both felt and recognised more in retrospect, and whose reputation continues to grow. He's an extraordinary soul songwiter, vocalist and arranger who peaked in the mid 70s with his soul masterpiece
"Musical Massage", but all periods of his work deserve some examination.
Apart from a brief Japan-only CD release on East-West, and a later, even briefer re-release on Expansion Records,
"Rockin' You Eternally" remains out of print, and seems to be the only unblogged album from his main period, so i'm presenting it here today along with a history in which hopefully even diehard Ware fans can find a few treats.
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italic links take you to individual songs. If you follow them, please thank those bloggers :)
Born in Detroit, Ware started as a Motown writer in the late 60s, scoring some hits for the Isley brothers and the Four Tops. After writing and producing much of Ike and Tina Turner's 1971 United Artists album
"Nuff Said", with great tracks like
"I Love Baby", the label gave him a shot in 1972 on his first solo album "
Leon Ware". Much of it references the classic RnB forms that he'd just been working on with the Turners, while tracks like
"Why Be Alone" and
"Nothing's Sweeter than My Baby's Love" showcase both his beautiful voice and the romantic soul for which he was to become better known.
As a writer, he continued to score hits such as Michael Jackson's
"I Wanna be Where You Are" and Donny Hathaway's
"I Know It's You". His vocal abilities were also being noticed in the 1973-74 period - he features on several tracks on the blaxploitation gem
"The Education of Sonny Carson", and he really came to the fore when he wrote and sung two of his tracks on the
Quincy Jones album
"Body Heat" - the
title track, which was a sizeable RnB hit, and in particular his song
"If I Ever Lose this Heaven", co-written with frequent collaborator Pam Sawyer and covered by many since.
His co-singer on that track, apart from Al Jarreau, was
Minnie Ripperton, then at her peak of success with
"Loving You". In 1975 , the two duetted on a cover of
"My Cherie Amour" on Quincy Jones' album
"Mellow Madness", although Leon's smooth vocal seems a little less comfortable on the pysch/funk track
"Paranoid" - good album though!
After that, Ware wrote several great songs for Ripperton's album
"Adventures In Paradise", notably
"Baby This Love I Have" and the haunting
"Inside My Love", both featuring an increasingly upfront eroticism (let's say it almost
drips on you!) that was to dominate his next work.
While working on his next solo album, Ware was also doing some demo tracks with Diana Ross' troubled brother
T-Boy Ross. Motown's Berry Gordy heard the demo for the song
"I Want You", and demanded it be passed on to
Marvin Gaye for his next single. In the end, Ware's entire, nearly finished solo album was given to Gaye, with both Leon's lead vocals and many of his backing vocal arrangements replaced by Marvin's. The resulting album
"I Want You" still stands as a 70s soul masterpiece, and a highlight of Gaye's catalogue. While much of the albums' upfront sexuality and eroticism has been linked to Gaye's sexual obsession with his younger second wife Jan, less has been written about how it stands as a natural progression from that emergent eroticism on the Ripperton album tracks, and follows in a straight line to Ware's followup.
Having given away a masterpiece, Leon Ware went into the studio in 1976 and recorded another. I've got little to say about
"Musical Massage" except that I think it's the greatest soul album of the 70s, and if you haven't got it, click that link and listen to it before this one. Or just have a listen to
"Instant Love",
"Musical Massage",
"Phantom Lover" or
"Holiday", with Marvin Gaye and Bobby Womack on backing vocals. Once again, Gordy wanted Ware to hand the album to Marvin Gaye. Ware's refusal led to the album being released with little or no promotion, and it failed commercially, although its stature continues to grow with time.
Ware retreated to work as a songwriter and producer, taking the reigns for albums like Syreeta's
"One to One" from 1977, Lara Saint Paul's
"Saffo Music", and the albums
"Shadow" (1980) and
"Shadows In the Street" (1981) for the Ohio Players' offshoot band Shadow.
In 1979 he signed with Elektra and released the self-produced
"Inside Is Love", a generally uptempo collection of soul numbers like
"What's Your Name", and a faster, almost disco version of
"Inside Your Love". Notably, with the beautiful
"Love Is Such a Simple Thing", he began a collaboration with Brazilian legend
Marcos Valle, who was exploring soul textures at the same time as Leon was reaching into brazilian harmonic changes. Valle began to feature Portugese versions of their collaborations on albums like 1981's
"Vontade de Rever Voce" and 1983's
"Marcos Valle".
That songwriting collaboration continued into the lush
title track of today's album, 1981's
"Rockin' You Eternally" (link at base of post). The song's a perfect slice of orchestral soul with unexpected chord progressions, Marcos Valle on the rhodes, and some unusually restrained and sensitive string arrangements from Gene Page. The album mixes uptempo numbers like
"Baby Don't Stop Me" and
"A Little Boogie (Never Hurt No One)" with more traditional Ware soul like
"Sure Do Want You Now" and
"Got to be Loved". His main writing collaborator on this album, however, was
Richard Rudolph, husband of Minnie Ripperton who had died of cancer two years before. (Rudolph had co-written all tracks on the
"Adventures in Paradise" album).
Some of the production suffers from FM synthesis, the scourge of the early 80s, but there's enough Leon here to still appreciate. There's a funny story from around this time where apparently Marcos Valle bought an 80s-style DX-7 keyboard in New York, sold his Fender Rhodes, regretted it, then had to beg
Deodato (who was living in a NYC hotel suite) to sell him a Rhodes again, in order to get some recording done - Deodato had six Fender Rhodes.
Ware recorded one more album for Elektra in 1982, titled
"Leon Ware" (just like his 1972 album), but they dropped him after it wasn't a hit. The 90s 'rediscovery' of the track
"That's Why I came to California" from that album led, in part, to the resurgence of interest in his earlier work.
For most of the 80s and 90s he worked as a songwriter - here's a few early 80s examples from
Nancy Wilson, Les McCann and Seawind. As a leader, he only released the albums
'Undercover' in 1987 and
"Taste the Love" in 1995, and notably collaborated on the track
"Sumthin' Sumthin' " on Maxwell's 1996 debut album
"Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite".
The arrival of the internet and renewed interest in his older work seems to have re-invigorated Leon, and he's released four independent albums :
"Candlelight" (2001);
"Love's Dripping" (2003);
"Deeper" (2004) and
"A Kiss in the Sand" (2005). Of these, I'd recommend the jazz-focused "Candlelight", which just features Leon on vocals and Don Grusin on piano and rhodes, although they're all good. "A Kiss in the Sand" references brazilian-syle harmonies and structures, while the other two are your romantic soul-style Leon Ware. it's actually quite amazing how well his voice has lasted.
Although his
website's recently had a major slickover, Leon continues to answer fan questions, as he has there since at least 1999, and still plays
live.
Jazzanova's new album
"Of All the Things" (2008) features a rendition of
"Rocking You Eternally" with both Ware and Dwele on vocals.
He's recently signed with the reconstituted
Stax Records, and in August 2008 released
"Moon Ride", his first major label release in 26 years. To quote the PR : Leon says
"I've never really been out there as a fully-fledged recording artist and performer because of my love for producing and writing. Now," he emphasizes,
"it's time to do that..."
'ROCKIN' YOU ETERNALLY' - LEON WARE (1981)
TRACKLIST
1. 'A Little Boogie (Never Hurt No One)' - (L.Ware, R.Rudolph)
2. 'Baby Don't Stop Me' - (L.Ware, M.Valle, L.Oliviera, P.Cetera)
3. 'Sure Do Want You Now' - (L.Ware, R.Rudolph)
4. Our Time' - (J.Williams, W.Beck, C.Willis, R.Rudolph, L.Ware)
5. 'Rockin' You Eternally' - (L.Ware, M.Valle)
6. 'Got to Be Loved' - (L.Ware, M.Valle, R.Rudolph)
7. 'Don't Stay Away' - (L.Ware)
8. 'In Our Garden' - (L.Ware, A.Anderson)
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Leon Ware for Leon Ware Productions.
Strings and horns arranged by Gene Page
1981 Elektra / Asylum Records
MUSICIANS
Leon Ware - lead and background vocals
William Beck - piano, rhodes
Marcos Valle - rhodes on tracks 5 and 6
Chet Willis - guitar, bass
James (Diamond) Williams- drums
Laudir de Oliveira - percussion
Michael Boddicker - synthesiser
Shadow - backing vocals on track 2
LEON WARE DISCOGRAPHY
1972 'Leon Ware' at ce la plume / FLAC at Avax
1976 'Musical Massage' at Here only Good Music For All
1979 'Inside Is Love' at Never Enough Rhodes
1981 'Rockin' You Eternally' in the comments of this post
1995 'Taste the Love'
2001 'Candelight'
2003 'Love's Drippin' at zonamusical
2004 'Deeper'
2005 'A Kiss In the Sand'
2008 'Moon Ride'
2009 "Leon Ware and Friends" collaborations comp.) at MasterfunkMoco
POST CREDITS
Rip by Simon666
Other album blog links in post go to :
Forrealheadz, Ce la plume, Blaxploitation Pride, Blak's Lair, DJ Uilson - Professor Groove, My Favourite Sound, fullundie, run's lossless library, Here Only Good Music for All, The Bossa Blog, Mellow Soul and Sensual Grooves, The Mood Indicator, Zona Musical, Let's Go Get It, regalame esta noche, funk classic master, Oufar Khan
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