THE RECORD (May 11, 1998) pg.9
“Quincy Jones’ Qwest results in a Canadian R&B discovery”
LOS ANGELES: R&B soulstress Tamia was just 17 when she performed
at a house party for Luther Vandross, hosted by her manager
Brenda Richie. One of the guests, Quincy Jones, took note of the
Windsor, Ont. native. Now, at 21, her eponymous debut is on the
music mogul’s Qwest label, distributed by Warner Music Canada.
Tamia’s album entered The Record’s top retail albums chart
at #63 last week. While the up-temp single Imagination has yet
to chart, the first-rate video which Much Music put into medium
rotation four weeks before the album’s April 14 release has
helped propel sales.
“It’s moving up the rhythmic urban chart in the U.S.,”
notes Warner Bros. Records marketing manager Ron Morse, “but we
don’t have that format here in Canada. Radio support is
building. We’re trying to work it to top 40. We’re telling the
story that it’s not Can-con, but she is Canadian.”
More importantly, she’s a Canadian R&B artist who got a
break. Richie was co-hosting a benefit concert in Aspen, Col.
four years ago at which Tamia performed. “She had the voice of
an angel,” recalls the Los Angeles-based Richie, who wasn’t
managing anybody at the time, but used to handle her ex-husband
Lionel’s career. “Immediately, you just know upon listening to
her that she was going places.”
Richie saw Tamia on several occasions after that in L.A. and
agreed to manage her when the teenage singer asked. Seeing a
young woman with a sense of what she wanted both artistically and
career-wise impressed Richie, who says, “She was also a very
quick study.”
Tamia didn’t return to Windsor. Instead she remained in
L.A., where she performed at the fortuitous Vandross bash.
A while later, the 1993 recipient of YTV’s Vocal Achievement
Award accepted the 1994 Steve Ross Music Scholarship at the
American Academy of Achievement’s Annual Salute to Excellence in
Las Vegas.
“Then Quincy had a song on his album that I think he had
tried six or seven singers for,” recalls Richie, “and they
couldn’t do it. He asked Tamia and she did it.”
You Put A Move On My Heart, a top 10 Billboard R&B hit,
earned Tamia her first Grammy nomination for bet female vocal
performance. Her second nomination, for best R&B performance by
a duo or group with vocals, was a result of her pairing with
Babyface on Jones’ next single, Slow Jams. Her third nomination,
for best pop collaboration, was for her team work with Brandy,
Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan on Missing You. Not bad for a gal
without an album of her own.
That was quickly rectified when Jones stepped in and signed
Tamia to his new Qwest label, bringing in various top producers
and songwriters to aid in the making of her debut album. “Tamia
did not think that she was a songwriter,” says Richie, “but put
her with other people who write and she was able to do that.”
It will be a while before Tamia, who was just in Toronto for
a promotional trip, returns to her native land. After a heavy
schedule of promotion in the U.S., she’ll head to Japan and
Europe.
“We are trying to get her back up here to do
performances,” says Morse. “But her schedule in the U.S. is
pretty busy. We were lucky we got her here on the tip of big
things in the U.S.”
--Karen Bliss
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