something that you told me stayed in my head

you wanted me to love you

Peabo Bryson | 1980 | New York City | photo by Deborah Feingold

When I was in high school, we had a musical extravaganza.

It was the 1980s. We had Prince. We had Michael Jackson I used to listen to Michael Franks, and the Police, Patrice Rushen, Teena Marie, Rick James, Heatwave, Teddy Pendergrass. Really, back then it was Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Theodore Pendergrass.

Somebody’s radio was always on.

Headphones were for audiophiles and weirdos. It seemed like everybody had shelves of vinyl, and they were precious about how the vinyl was organized. Alphabetically. By genre. Solo artists vs. groups — whatever. My Aunt Victoria had no such meticulousness. I lived with her for most of my 9th grade, and I could play whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. She had Enchantment’s 1977 Once Upon A Dream, so I wore out “It’s You That I Need.” She had Tapestry so I wore out “Way Over Yonder” and “So Far Away” — and wrote¹ about Carole King just a few weeks ago for the New York Times. Victoria had David Ruffin’s 1979 So Soon We Change, and that title song — when he says I hope to God we’re doing right — has never not saved my life.

Everything about music was emotional to me until around the 10th grade, when I started being obsessive about what exactly soul music was and what exactly pop music was, how it all affected people individually, and also how it affected large groups. What fans were, and what fanship really meant. I started reading liner notes. I started reading Rolling Stone. I started reading old issues of Life magazine. Lord knows I could find an issue of Playboy around our household, and I started reading the interviews — Cher, Elton John, David Bowie — and became fascinated by conversations with musicians. It consumed me. I began to see patterns I still see to this day.

My mom’s friend / my play aunt Mary had me working, with a fake permit, for the City of Los Angeles in various capacities since I was 14, so I went to live shows anytime I could afford it. Sometimes I could get a family member to pay for a show. Sometimes I was gifted a show. As I say in my Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop: “On a date with a boy from the Jesuit school, I see the Go-Go’s live at the Hollywood Bowl. At the Greek Theatre, I see Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey with my mother. With [my older cousin] Gail, I see the Whispers and Richard “Dimples” Fields at the Greek.”

A good bar bet for me is like, Danyel I bet you haven’t seen so-and-so, performing live. I’ve been reduced to tears by Cindy Lauper in a soundcheck with Kelly Rowland in a NYC hotel ballroom. I experienced Dru Hill in Nashville performing their debut “Tell Me” single before it was released. I’ve seen Neil Diamond at Madison Square Garden. I’ve seen Too Short open for A Tribe Called Quest. I’ve seen Ice T’s Body Count live in San Francisco. Last show I’ve seen is probably Bruno Mars in Vegas. Nope. Sheila E. at the Blue Note in Los Angeles. Music pulls me.

I had a high school bestie named Kim.

Kim had an older sister — I think her adult sister’s name was Tisha. Tisha stood in line and got us all tickets to see the Jacksons on their Triumph Tour in 1981. I must have been in the 11th grade.

When I read the Wikipedia entry for the Triumph Tour, it’s like, it was a concert tour by the Jacksons, covering the United States and Canada from July 8 to September 26, 1981. The tour grossed a total of $5.5 million and ended with a record-breaking four sold-out concerts in Inglewood, California. Crazy. I was at one of those four sold-out nights, and it was the time of my life. It was insane. I was an emo kid, alternately insanely thrilled with life and horrifyingly depressive.

from my Shine Bright.

Going to see the Jacksons was a huge deal, a rare event. What kept me going on the daily was the radio.

I used to listen during the day all the time, but at night, the radio station, K-ACE had a set that came on around 10 or 11 o’clock. It was called “EZ’s Mood for Love.” If you were in L.A. in that era, and especially if are Black or Latino, I know you remember it.

EZ Wiggins’ show, which opened each time with a pice of George Benson’s “Moody’s Mood,” was just all slow songs, including actual song dedications. It would be like Al Wilson’s “Show and Tell,” or Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next to You.” EZ might play Tower of Power’s “You’re Still a Young Man, or maybe Main Ingredient’s “Everybody Plays the Fool.” The Floaters doing “Float On,” maybe Deniece Williams’ “Free,” or “Always and Forever” from Heatwave. The Emotions’ “Don’t Ask My Neighbor.” I used to build whole emotional universes inside of Cameo’s “Sparkle.”

And when a boy named Andre dedicated Con Funk Shun’s “Make It Last” to me? He wasn’t even my boyfriend — we just liked each other. What i remember about Andre so many decades later is his eyelashes. I only think of him when I hear Con Funk Shun, or I see a man with lashes that could fan you from across the street. This goes out to Danyel, from Andre. That’s what EZ said. On, to quote Donna Summer, the radio.

And people ask me, Danyel why do you love music so much?

Because as a child the exercise of dodging emotional cruelty morphed me into a yearning little empath. A searcher. And eventually a reporter and storyteller. Music made me believe that emotion was real and that love could be conjured and shared. Why do I love music so much is a ridiculous question. I’ll fight you over music. And have.

A song that used to get me weeping was Peabo Bryson’s 1978 “I’m So Into You.”

It’s his biggest R&B hit, he wrote and co-produced it², and became enough of a staple on Black radio that I thought the song was new in ‘81. EZ played it endlessly on his Mood For Love. And when Bryson sang, You paid your dues / Right From the start / What a price to pay, I didn’t know what the dues were, or why it was important that they had been paid early.

But he sounded respectfully certain, and like he’d seen his partner and understood his partner. This made me play him louder, and listen to those lines over and over. As stated in Shatter the Standards newsletter, “his hunger is registered, but his appetite is restrained, a young man with a need expressing desire like someone who has thought it all through.” Please have thought it all through! Because I definitely had not.

I would later get deeply into the mayhem of Prince’s, “Do Me, Baby” and “Head,” and Angela Bofill’s³ hopeful “Tonight I Give In” and Mtume’s rich “Juicy Fruit” and Eugene Wild’s almost unctuous “Gotta Get You Home Tonight,” but the thing about Peabo Bryson — may he rest in peace — that made his Disney ballads so indelible was his aplomb. He reached but he did not wobble. He was not a boor or a bore. Bryson’s persona, even as he sang “Feel the Fire” (which he wrote) was emotionally attentive: Something that you told me, he sang, stayed in my head. You wanted me to love you.

You wanted me to love you. Without disdain for another’s “thirst.” You wanted me to love you: pure declaration and no judgment.

EZ played “Feel the Fire” on K-ACE’s Mood For Love every single show⁴. It meant as much to me as Andre, with his long lashes, dedicating the Con Funk Shun song.

Okay. I’m in my feelings now.

But what is high school if not a reason to wring out, at my big age, how love felt when I didn’t even know what it was.

And since this is my personal newsletter, I’m stopping now, without going for a conclusion that brings everything all together. I have been bringing essays all together since I was features editor at The Far & Near, my middle school newspaper.

Everything ain’t all together.

Picture me rehabbing my left arm. And randomly humming Mos Def’s “UMI Says.”

In music,

DS

1. gift link, here.

2. pls factcheck me; i’m moving fast

3. i wrote about Bofill here, and spoke to her for my Black Girl Songbook podcast

4. factcheck me! idc i’m spiritually correct!