Making Of A Classic: Stephanie Mills
I like thisFEEL HER FIRE: Thirty years later, Stephanie Mills’ Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin‘? is still blazing brightly. What makes it a classic? The sound of a classy, brassy 22-year-old stepping up her game with a little help from James Mtume and Reggie Lucas.
By S.E. Flemming Jr.
When Stephanie Mills’ 20th Century Fox Records debut Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin’? hit shelves in 1979, the singer had already conquered the Great White Way via “Maggie Flynn” and “The Wiz.” However, the glitter of big stages didn’t turn to gold on record, …as two false starts – one for ABC and the other for Motown – did little to accentuate her glorious gifts. A performer since the age of 9, she wanted more.
“Broadway is my home, but I think I’ve proved myself there,” a then-22-year-old Mills told the New York Times. “I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now. I want to record and to be a touring artist – I want to be solid in that before I do anything else.”
In a soulful twist of fate, it was the creation of another diva’s album that helped set Mills’ breakthrough in motion. “Blue Lights in the Basement,” a 1977 opus waxed by Roberta Flack, featured a supporting cast that included percussionist James Mtume and guitarist Reggie Lucas. Talented instrumentalists and tunesmiths, the two were jazz journeymen first and foremost: Mtume, who would later go on to take his band of the same name to the top of the charts with “Juicy Fruit” and “You, Me and He,” had been a part of Miles Davis’ backing ensemble. Meanwhile Lucas sharpened his chops behind luminaries like Norman Connors. Among the gems they sweetened alongside bassist Basil Fearrington, drummer Howard King and keyboardists Hubert Eaves and Harry Whitaker was the timeless ballad “The Closer I Get to You,” a song Mtume and Lucas wrote together.
MTUME: Reggie Lucas, Basil Fearrington, Tawatha Agee, James Mtume, Hubert Eaves, Howard King
Fearrington, who like Lucas, Eaves and King was at one time part of the Mtume lineup, says the song grew out of a recording session Flack was late getting to: “After an hour passed and she hadn’t arrived, Mtume said, ‘Let’s go over this song Reggie and I have been working on.’ Rather than just sit around, we did that,” Fearrington recalls. “By the time Roberta came in, we were two to three hours into having run it down. She said, ‘Oooh …What’s that? I like that,’ and it went from there. Instead of what we were going to do, we spent all night perfecting ‘The Closer.’”
Donny Hathaway’s initial lack of interest in cutting the tune with Flack brought future Mills duet partner Teddy Pendergass into the picture, but Fearrington says the singer simply wasn’t a good fit. Hathaway, who was dealing with the rigors of mental illness at the time, soon came around and agreed to join his longtime friend and collaborator on the song. It became a sensation, topping the R&B chart and selling over a million copies.
“So with that success, Mtume and Lucas moved to make things happen for themselves,” Fearrington says. “Since we were actually the sound of the unit, they enticed us to leave Roberta’s situation. The Stephanie Mills record was the first major opportunity to come up, so we put our all into it. Stephanie was the beneficiary of all that anxious energy.”
And benefit she did. Produced by Mtume and Lucas and recorded at Sigma Sound in New York, Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin’? was a tight collection of what the singer labeled “rhythm and blues-pop.” Split between rock-solid steppers and the ballads that would become her forte, the album was part production showcase, part coming out party – and the singer more than rose to the occasion.
Clear, confident and classy, Mills’ vocals rode the grooves effortlessly, perfectly complementing the declarative tenor of the Mtume-Lucas production brand. It was a match void of the Svengali-like shadow that can fall across a young artist’s work, as Fearrington remembers Mills offering input during the early sessions that were used to determine whether or not the musicians would do the entire record.
“In those days it was typical for the rhythm section to record all of the tracks, followed by strings and so on – then the singer would come in,” Fearrington says. “But on these sessions, Stephanie came in for a couple of the tunes to help us with the mood of each tune. I remember her attitude being one that was very helpful and cooperative.”
Buoyed by the powerful backing vocals of Mtume’s Tawatha Agee, Wonderlove alumnus Lani Groves, Brenda White and songwriter Gwen “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But the Rent” Guthrie, Mills shined bright on the album’s three hits: The laid back title track and the frenetic, synth-tinged “You Can Get Over” brimmed with a breathless energy rarely captured in her later material, while “Put Your Body In It,” written by King and guitarist Ed “Tree” Moore, fell right in the funky middle. Still, the singer was quick to point out at the time that she wasn’t in the running for a club land crown.
“It’s definitely not disco,” Ms. Mills told the Times. “Disco is Donna Summer. What I do is more like Diana Ross, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin or even Barbra Streisand.”
Indeed, “You and I,” “Starlight,” and “Deeper Inside Your Love” were sweepingly elegant in their tenderness, but it was Peabo Bryson’s “Feel the Fire” – which she also recorded to lesser effect with Pendergrass for his 1980 TP album – that took the histrionics the singer perfected during her theater days to a sensual climax. A last-minute addition to the album that Fearrington says was nailed in one take, the ballad even contains an error on the introduction.
”Stephanie brought in sheet music for the song. I read off the music, as did Hubert Eaves, who doubled the bass with his left hand on piano. On the pickup to bar 7, one of us played the note natural and the other played it flat, like an E natural and an E flat,” Fearrington says. “Mtume let it go because he wasn’t at all thrilled about doing the song in the first place.”
Technical errors and indifference aside, Mills gave a tour de force performance on what was not only the centerpiece of the album, but the ballad of her career. In a swirl of moody strings and dramatic, choral-style background vocals, she painted the perfect portrait of the emotional highs and lows that permeate matters of the heart. Arguably the definitive version of the song, it remains a favorite of her diehard fans and soul purists alike.
Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin’? was a critical and commercial success, becoming the first of five gold albums Mills would earn in her career. She continued having hits with Mtume and Lucas, even earning a Grammy Award for the classic “Never Knew Love Like This Before.” The sound they crafted with her eventually seeped into the mainstream, thanks to Lucas’ production work on the debut for a blonde upstart named Madonna. (Just take a close listen to the hit “Borderline.”) Chart busters would come Mills’ way after she moved on, but it wasn’t the same. There’s a magic about her early material that’s timeless.
On this album the little girl with the big voice became Stephanie Mills, the woman.
“That first record was, without a doubt, one of the important records of that era in R&B,” Fearrington says. “Stephanie had already defined herself as a voice to be reckoned with via her work on Broadway with “The Wiz.” What we did was take that voice and solidify her place in the history of R&B – for that era and all eras to follow.”
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Awesome article
S. Millz was sexy as hell, amazin voice!!!
This was a fantastic & rich piece. You’ve outdone yourself, as always!
Despite the dig at Donna Summer, Stephanie is alright in my book. “Put Your Body In It” is a disoc record though, don’t try to deny it, lol. A darn funky one at that! Again, great job!-QH
Fantastic Read, I love nothing more than hearing what went on behind the scenes when these classic records were made
Great job Steve. You know I am a die hard Stephanie Mills fan. I love all of her music, but there is something about this album that clearly cements Stephanies place in music history.