BEYOND STREET LIFE

 Veronica "Randy" Crawford was born on February 18, 1952, in Macon, GA; one of five children.

Career

Randy sang in church and school choirs and local night clubs as a teenager, Cincinnati, OH; performed in St. Tropez, France, 1967; began performing with George Benson, 1972; released first single, "If You Say the Word," 1972; sang at World Jazz Association tribute concert to Cannonball Adderley, Los Angeles, CA, 1975; released first album, Everything Must Change, on Warner Brothers, 1976; sang lead on "Street Life" for The Crusaders, 1979; completed tour of Europe, 1984; performed with London Symphony Orchestra, 1988; collaborated with Italian performer Zucchero at a performance in the Soviet Union, 1990; performed at Christmas concert at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II, 1991; released Every Kind of Mood on Mesa/Blue Moon Label, 1997.

Life's Work

Proving herself to be a versatile interpreter of jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, and pop, singer Randy Crawford has been an active presence on the music scene since she began performing in local night clubs as a teenager. Her recordings have run the gamut from smooth ballads such as "One Day I'll Fly Away," which became her trademark song, to covers of songs made famous by Bob Dylan ("Knockin' on Heaven's Door"), Brook Benton ("Rainy Night in Georgia"), and the artist formerly known as Prince ("Purple Rain").

Whether recording new songs or established favorites, Randy Crawford has long been known for her signature sound that makes every song seem new. "Before you know it, regardless of whatever category the tune was at its inception, it is a Randy Crawford song," noted the Atlanta Constitution in its review of her 1997 release Every Kind of Mood. The singer has also been lauded by critics for her ability to create a personal link with listeners that brings them right into the sentiment of the song. As Jeremy Helligar noted in People, "Crawford's great assets are her intimate singing style and vocal restraint -- the way she lightly tugs her vowels when she's caught up in the heat of passion and unleashes gentle tremolos when she's suffering the agony of heartache."

Despite being frequently praised for her mastery of many different musical styles, Crawford's versatility has in some ways hampered her career. As Ron Wynn remarked in The All-Music Guide to Rock, "Crawford's quivering delivery and eclectic nature has made it difficult for record companies to target and market her materials." Although she has not attracted a wide audience within the United States, she has been a popular star in Europe for nearly two decades. From 1979 to 1984, eleven of her singles reached the top 75 in Britain.

As a child in Cincinnati, Ohio, Crawford's vocal talent was developed by singing in church and social choirs. By the time she was 15, she was performing in local night clubs. In 1967, she made her international debut in St. Tropez, France during a summer vacation trip to Europe. Crawford has cited singers such as Dinah Washington and Aretha Franklin as important early career influences. As a young girl, she discovered gospel music by listening to recordings of Aretha Franklin. "I used to listen to all of those records for many, many hours," Crawford remarked in Ebony Man.

As a teenager, Crawford was lead vocalist in a group that included bassist William "Bootsy" Collins, who taught her how to play piano. A television appearance attracted the attention of a Los Angeles booking agent, who helped land her a gig as an opening act for noted jazz guitarist/singer George Benson. In 1972 she began opening for Benson at Nico's, a popular jazz/soul club in New York City. "I got discovered while I was singing with George Benson," Crawford later told Ebony Man. During her first year with Benson, she released her first single "If You Say the Word."

Crawford's career received another boost in 1975, when Warner Brothers signed her to a contract after she appeared with Benson and Quincy Jones at the World Jazz Association tribute concert for the late Cannonball Adderley. Her debut album, Everything Must Change, "displayed her ability to interpret songs in a variety of styles with a voice that was rich in inflection and capable of a wide range of expression," according to The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Although reviews of the album were largely positive, sales were only mediocre. In 1977, Crawford appeared as a backup vocalist on Please Don't Touch, the second solo album of former Genesis member Steve Hackett. 

In 1979 Crawford recorded Raw Silk, which featured songs written by Allen Toussaint, Ashford & Simpson, and Oscar Brown. That same year she sang lead vocals on the title track of Street Life, an album by the popular jazz group The Crusaders. The song topped jazz charts in the United States for 20 weeks and made Crawford a star on the international music scene. The Crusaders co-wrote, produced, and provided instrumental support on Crawford's 1980 release Now We May Begin. The title track from this album was "a beautiful ballad that established her independent career," claimed The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Although Now We May Begin failed to climb music charts in the United States, it reached number ten in Britain. In 1981, Crawford recorded the love theme for the soundtrack of The Competition, a film starring Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving.

Crawford continued to experience tremendous success in Europe. Her song "You Might Need Somebody" rose to number 11 on the British charts. Her next album Secret Combination climbed to number two in Britain and number 71 in the United States. This album featured a mix of smooth ballads, as well as funkier music, and utilized a wide range of musical styles. Secret Combination also marked the first time that a Crawford album charted in the top 100 on the American music charts.

In 1984, Crawford launched a successful tour of Europe. She returned to the United States that same year and recorded a duet with pop star Rick Springfield entitled "Taxi Dancing." In 1986 Crawford released Abstract Emotions, which reached number 14 on the British charts. In 1988, she appeared in two sold-out concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra. She also performed at jazz festivals throughout the world with such notable jazz musicians as Al Jarreau, Jose Sample, and Ray Charles. She traveled to the Soviet Union in 1990 and performed in the Kremlin with the Italian superstar Zucchero.

During the early 1990s, Crawford experienced a slow period in her career. In 1995, she released a new album on the WEA Germany label entitled Naked and True and began another tour of Europe. The album was soon released in the United States by the Mesa/Bluemoon label. Naked and True became Crawford's third most successful album, selling 250,000 copies in the United States and over 500,000 copies worldwide. The album featured songs in a wide range of styles, including "Give Me the Night," which hit number one on the Smooth Jazz/NAC radio charts.

Crawford remains active as a performer and recording artist after some 30 years of professional singing, and her music continues to attract critical acclaim. "Crawford's unique vocal styling gives life to the fifteen tracks that emote love, heartbreak, sympathy, and passion," raved John Norment in his review of Crawford's 1997 release Every Kind of Mood. In the liner notes of Every Kind of Mood, Ahmet Ertegun offered even higher praise. "I listen to Randy Crawford and hear something so familiar," wrote Ertegun. "It's a sound that's timeless, beautiful, and honest. It's the sound of one of the most truly soulful voices of our time."

Awards

Awards and honors: Most Outstanding Performer, Tokyo Music Festival, 1980; Best Female Artist, BRIT Awards, U.K., 1982.

Works

Selective Discography

• Everything Must Change, Warner, 1976.
• Now We May Begin, Warner, 1980.
• Abstract Emotions, Warner, 1986.
• Naked and True, Mesa/Bluemoon, 1995.
• Every Kind of Mood, Mesa/Bluemoon, 1997.

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Pianist and composer Joseph Leslie “Joe” Sample, was born February 1, 1939 in Houston, Texas. For more than four decades he has been an integral, innovative and bestselling part of jazz history. With Soul Shadows, the first all solo piano recording of Sample's illustrious career, he pays homage to the great American songwriters of the 20th century whose masterful works inspired his own development as one of the most diverse and popular jazz performers of the last half century.
A founding member of the influential jazz funk combo The Crusaders (originally the Jazz Crusaders) and a pioneer of contemporary jazz piano, Sample reaches back to the primary sources of jazz and soul music to create his personal interpretations of classics by such esteemed composers as Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, the Gershwins, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and others. While exploring these rich expressions of Americana, Sample acknowledges his own key role in carrying on these powerful legacies by including distinct reworkings of two of his own classics, "Soul Shadows" (which originally appeared on The Crusaders' Midnight Triangle in 1976) and "Spellbound."Soul Shadows' multi-faceted 12 track set list includes such Great American Songbook chestnuts as Joplin's "The Entertainer," Ellington's "I Got It Bad and That' Ain't Good," Gershwin's "Embraceable You" & "I Got Rhythm," Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'" & "Jitterbug Waltz," Morton's "Shreveport Stomp" and Jolson's "Avalon." But for Sample, the collection is more than simply living and re-interpreting musical history-it's a true window into the heart and roots of the man and an insight into the role of the piano player in 20th Century American music. His approach to the songs and the genre perfectly reflect Sample's belief that "if you played the piano in a stride or ragtime or a boogie-woogie manner, you wouldn't need a bass player, you didn't need a drummer. That's how I started playing in the first place. I've been a solo pianist since I was six years old playing in my mama's living room for her after-church teas."Conceptually, the defining track on Soul Shadows is the Walter Donaldson-Sam Lewis-Joe Young composition "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?" which opens the set. For Sample, the album is something of a long overdue tribute to a chief personal influence slightly lesser known to the listening public-James Reese Europe, the first bona fide jazz big band leader whose jazz orchestra entered Paris in 1918 as part of the famous Fighting 369th unit. Before returning to Harlem in 1919, Europe and his orchestra spread jazz throughout England and Europe, introducing audiences to a sound and style that would change history. Sample's father fought in World War I and told his son stories about Europe and hearing the song, which was a big hit during that time.

"As a young musician I wondered, where did our music come from?" says Sample. "I've become a bit of a historian of jazz and all African American music, and recently discovered a biography of James Reese Europe. Reading that biography has given me a clearer understanding of why he has been so important not only to me, but to all of us."Learning to play piano at age five, the Houston native's formative years found him firmly rooted in many different musical traditions, including gospel, soul, bebop, blues, Latin, and classical music. One of the many jazzmen who started out playing hard bop but went electric during the fusion era, (soon after attending Texas Southern University for three years,) Sample founded the Jazz Crusaders along with trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxman Wilton Felder and drummer Stix Hooper. Relocating to and launching their storied career in Los Angeles, The Crusaders patterned themselves after Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, only without a trumpet and becoming renowned for their unique tenor/trombone front line.

Sample focused on the acoustic piano during the Crusaders' early years (late 50s-early 60s), but began to place greater emphasis on electric keyboards when the band turned to jazz/funk in the early 70s and dropped the "Jazz" from its name. After garnering numerous gold and platinum albums over the course of nearly three decades, The Crusaders' last official recording was Life in the Modern World in 1987. Sample and Felder released the dual album Healing the Wounds on GRP in the early 90s, and in 2003 rejoined Hooper for a more full-scale reunion that produced the Southern styled hit jazz fusion recording Rural Renewal-billed as the first new album by The Crusaders in over 20 years-and a popular subsequent tour.While actively touring as a member of the Crusaders, Sample simultaneously launched a successful solo career. His bestselling recordings include Rainbow Seeker, Carmel, Voices in the Rain, Spellbound, Ashes to Ashes, Invitation (a return to his bebop roots), Did You Feel That?, Old Places, Old Faces and the George Duke produced Sample This. GRP also released The Joe Sample Collection and the three CD Crusaders Collection as testament to Sample's enduring legacy. The pianist's most recent recordings are 1999's The Song Lives On (featuring duets with singer Lalah Hathaway) and 2002's The Pecan Tree, a colorful tribute to his hometown of Houston, where he relocated in 1994.In addition to his own recording, Sample has toured and performed with numerous musical greats in all genres, including Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, BB King, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Randy Crawford (who sang on the 1979 Crusaders smash "Street Life"), Anita Baker, Andrae Crouch and many others.By returning to the roots of his own musical influence, Sample's Soul Shadows gives us a unique reflection and chronicle of traditional American music at its best .