ENCORE PERFORMANCE: Didja Feel The Music of...Anita Baker

Anita Baker fans had mixed feelings about her announcement that she was retiring from music. We were sad at the loss of new recordings from her; yet, happy she was achieving what she said was one of her “goals/dreams” in life—to retire. As she stated, writing and recording music is in her DNA, “But, I’m on a different road. #BeachBum.”  Now there is talk of a Las Vegas performance and fans are thrilled. In tribute and to the possibility of more great music from Anita Baker, the following encore is offered.

                                                                 
Microphone, Silver, Metal, Sound Waves

From the opening notes, Anita Baker’s voice draws me inside her songs. I hear the first few lyrics clearly, and then words are seductively swirled into the sound that is uniquely hers. The lyrics mix with the tones and shadings she skillfully blends to tell of love, and loss, desire and the fulfillment of that desire. She creates a vocal eddy that surrounds me, pulls me in, and I feel the song from the center moving out. 
   
Is she inside the song as well? I have to think so; because, she plumbs the depths of each musical phrase. But, she never struggles in those depths; she maintains the beautiful balance between feeling and musicianship.

I am lifted up on her highs and dip down with her lows and am carried along in the natural flow of her singing. This experience listening to Anita Baker’s music is all about the feeling when I’m within her musical sound.   

And, as her performance circles to a close I don’t want to be turned loose—let it keep turning and taking me wherever it may lead. 

Let the music reach completely around you and allow yourself to become a part of what surrounds you as she sings “Soul Inspiration”

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDOvzUaIe88


Didja Know?
Smokey Robinson recorded a romantic adult album, Quiet Storm, that began a subgenre of music that took its name from the title and was rooted in R&B. Anita Baker added her special smoldering sensuality and the likes of Marvin Gaye, Gil Scott-Heron, Bill Withers, Grover Washington Jr. and many more gave voice and instrumentation to loving sexual feelings.
If you haven’t heard it before, see what you feel as you listen to the original “Quiet Storm” here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8zurufgMuI

And Didja Know This?
Leon Ware, musician, songwriter and record producer, helped define the quiet storm sound. His decades-long career and collaborations influenced the work of greats from Quincy Jones to Michael Jackson to Average White Band here:  


 on to Maxwell here:



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