*like sweet morning dew, heaven help us all

black history month is happening over here

I’m the author, producer, and podcast creator/host Danyel Smith. SHINE BRIGHT HQ is where I freestyle about music and culture. And regardless of what some say, it’s Black History Month. February 1 was about Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson.

My workdays revolve around playlists. I listen to them in order to work. I curate them as part of my research projects. The lists also just bring me joy. In these times of tumult and terror and takeover, I’m attempting to focus, and today's focus is on displaying artistry. On sharing excellence and big emotion and the magic that happens when voices intertwine and collaborate.

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So. I’m shrugging about Luka Dončić being a new Laker (my Celtics exposed the Mavericks last season). And finally watching Season 1 of Surface (can we discuss Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s tulip jacquard strapless Herrera from Episode 1?). I’m also blessed to be working on projects that make me nosy, and happy.

I also traveled to Richmond, Virginia for the first time. It was for the funeral of a good friend's grandmother. She was 93 and deeply beloved. I sat solo near the back of the church because I was on call for edits and needed, in some moments, to step into the foyer. When I re-seated myself after one such time, there was a woman behind me who had added a fuchsia scarf to her jet ensemble. I complimented her on it, and asked how she knew Miss Clementine. She said they were neighbors. "Our gardens joined," the woman told me, "in the back of our homes." A couple of hours later, after fellowshipping over a repast of chicken, soft rolls, collard greens, and potato salad, I was at a place called Ironclad Coffee, sipping a good cortado and just chilling, as we do, in the capital of the Confederacy.

I got to thinking about the contralto at the funeral, who sat at the piano as she sang, sans microphone, “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Following tradition, she sang it for the recessional — at a slower, but still upbeat pace — and it left me thinking about lyric to the songs that are not so often sung

Oh, when the stars fall from the sky / Oh, when the stars fall from the sky Oh Lord I want to be in that number/ When the saints go marching in. Oh, when the moon turns red with blood Oh, when the moon turns red with blood Oh Lord I want to be in that number When the saints go marching in.

Louis Armstrong’s 1938 recording of the song is most famous. Thinking about Armstrong got me to thinking about Ray Charles, and then the long friendship between Charles and Quincy Jones.

I've pulled the playlist below together, looking for patterns. For two separate projects, I've been studying duets (and by studying, I mean blasting and scribbling/typing notes) and examining why they work when they work (and why they don't when they don't). Like, can you see and/or feel mutual respect between the singers? Are they giving each other space? Do they find themselves building off of each other and taking turns leading? Does the listener feel the creative camaraderie, or even competition?

Here's almost four hours of some of the best duets in the history of recorded music

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Can it be that it was all so simple then? Um, no. But “Take Care” is perfect. When Fenty comes with, If/ You let me…!

Also: (and if I’m late idc) a new thing research taught me:

the song already existed as "I'll Take Care of You" (1959) by Bobby Bland, and "I'll Take Care of U" (2011) by Gill Scott-Heron and Jamie xx.

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Can you feel — as Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. sing their “You Don’t Have To Be A Star” —

…the energy of their Fifth Dimension days?

That’s Marilyn McCoo on the right. “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” is symbolic of the entire 1970s. It spent six straight weeks as the No. 1 song in America and won the Record of the Year Grammy over more mainstream beloveds Peggy Lee, Johnny Cash, Henry Mancini, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. The 5th Dimension toured internationally with Frank Sinatra, and did the demeaning, dazzling work of headlining in Vegas as it inched away from its Mississippi-of-the-West era. The group ended up releasing twenty Top 40 singles.

I interviewed McCoo, and devoted a chapter to her in my Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Theirs is a complex legacy. Because even with the group’s massive accomplishments, there’s an image of the 5th Dimension playing Richard Nixon’s White House that stands out loudly on memory lane.

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As TheVintageParents said: “Wait for Kenny’s reaction when Dolly Parton starts singing.” To that I add, Watch her whole walk to the stage. Watch the whole damn thing. Also hear Kenny Rogers’ voice make that sexy dip into “We’ve got tonight.” I feel like Sheena Easton was his original partner on this and um … 😳 If anyone knows more, please share. Because I don’t have time to research everything.

I was thinking about Rogers (because he was on the soundtrack of my teen years) and because I remember so hard when Rogers’ “Lady” was a hit (it was Rogers’ only solo chart-topping song on Billboard’s Hot 100), and folks were shocked that a Black guy had written and produced it. Please listen below to Rogers talking about how he and Lionel Richie started working together, and then hear them sing their song. History!

I interviewed and wrote about Richie in 2022. The below is from the filed draft.

That he has so often been labeled corny and schmaltzy or “not black enough” would be laughable if it weren’t so painful to him, condescending to his fans, and perfectly in line with the way the black pop of the 1980s was concurrently uplifted by the masses and stomped on by those writing the first draft of music history. This was the era in which Richie and fellow Motown valedictorians Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson changed the personality of American pop. “I Just Called to Say I Love You” does not hold a candle to, say “Ordinary Pain,” and “Upside Down” will never be “Touch Me in the Morning,” but the criticisms of ‘80s black pop are so alike and steady, it begins to feel like a systemic call to stand down. They were ubiquitous and resented for that ubiquity. The music of Lionel Richie and his cohort was looked upon with disdain for having the audacity to over-perform at stadiums, on radio stations, in record stores, and in the hearts of music lovers in the way no black artists had done — or been allowed to do — before.

The finished piece is in the Los Angeles Times, here.

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And since we’re on the idea of “Ebony and Ivory” (a Stevie Wonder duet I don’t like), here’s Tom Jones and Wonder (worth the full watch) as a precursor to the Sir Tom Jones and EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson moment that went so viral.

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5 more Black History Month-type things:

1. HBCU bands have been part of Super Bowl festivities since the first halftime show. This year, Southern University’s “Human Jukebox” will perform before the national anthem.

2. Deesha Philyaw reviews Charmaine Wilkerson’s new Good Dirt.

3. The new leader of the Momofuku empire (Milk Bar, Fuku, Bāng Baris, etc.) is Bajan chef Paul Carmichael.

4. California girl Angel Blue walks in the operatic footsteps of Leontyne Price.

5. My first novel, More Like Wrestling was published on February 3, 2003

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Leaving you with the reminder that our gardens join in the back of our homes.

Danyel

PS: *