Silky Soul Music: All Star Tribute to Maze featuring Frankie Beverly – Various Artists

(Available Sept. 29th, 2009!)

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Various Artists – Silky Soul Music: All Star Tribute to Maze featuring Frankie Beverly

With much of today’s R&B landscape, the hottest hits rely on hitting that perfect beat, the perfect hook, or the latest dance crazes that are “walking it out” as fast they walked on in. Then there were the golden days where staples like Maze featuring Frankie Beverly simply relied on soothing pure soul melodies with splashes of funk and jazz and plenty of smooth grooves. Their winning formula continues to impact audiences as they are a staple at The Essence Music Festival. Maze kept both the pop and R&B charts blazing once they released their debut album and the hits flowed for two straight decades starting in the mid-seventies. Their discography of singles and albums crossed over to the pop music charts, and audiences in the U.K. were naturally attracted to Maze because of their solid affection for old school unadulterated soul. Long before the group was discovered by a Motown legend, the citizens of Beverly’s hometown was raving about his suave singing abilities as a young man.

Beverly was a fan of a fifties vocal group from his hometown of Philadelphia, an urban music hotbed, which inspired him in striving for the music industry big time. Born Howard Beverly, one of Beverly’s early idols was Frankie Lymon. Lyman’s claim to fame was as the lead vocalist with The Teenagers, who breezed their way with several doo-wop favorites including “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” and “The ABC’s of Love.” Beverly was so enamored with Lymon that he changed his first name to Frankie. With his first professional job before becoming a teenager, Beverly sang in doo-wop groups The Silhouettes (the group known for the 1959 hit “Get A Job”) and his first group as a leader – The Blenders. When The Blenders disbanded, Beverly formed The Butlers, who eventually changed their name to Raw Soul. Before the group decided moving to the west coast, they recorded for Gamble Records – an independent company ran by Kenny Gamble before he turned soul music history upside down with his Philadelphia International Records moniker.

The group eventually moved to San Francisco paying more dues in the regional club scene. After a series of independent singles that addressed race issues such as “Color Blind,” Beverly and company finally received their musical breakthrough from Marvin Gaye, who asked them to accompany him on tour and showcase their own material as an opening act. The domino effect too effect as Capitol Records eventually signed the group on the strength of the tour and the group Maze was birthed. Besides their many soul satisfying hits like “Happy Feeling,” “Running Away,” “Joy & Pain” and “Can’t Get Over You,” Maze recorded three electrifying concerts on video including Live in New Orleans. The group’s impact was also widespread, especially for the hip-hop community including Grandmaster Flash who remixed “Before I Let Go” on his Essential Mix disc in 2002 and A Tribe Called Quest who sampled “Joy & Pain” on a song from their 1990 debut disc – “Go Ahead In The Rain.” 

Named after one of their most successful albums Silky Soul Music, this excellent tribute is the brainchild of executive producer Frankie’s son Anthony who also acts as co-producer with Rex Rideout. Some of today’s soul communicators, all who are understandably huge fans of Maze, are on hand to recreate their greatest hits but respecting the vibe of the original recordings. Everything is heartily recommended here. That said, here are the tracks that are especially worthy of a second pass-through: Musiq Soulchild who sings the title track, Kem’s lush baritone on “Golden Time of Day”; Mary J. Blige’s fiery performance of “Before I Let Go”; Ledisi with an exhilarating jazz induced treatment of “Happy Feelings”; Mint Condition gracefully handling the high octane funk jam “Back In Stride” and the collective of The Clark Sisters, Kierra ‘Kiki’ Sheard and J. Moss with a rousing gospel music treatment of “I Wanna Thank You” (produced by Donald Lawrence).

The remaining tracks for Silky Soul Music are:

We Are One – Raheem Devaughn

Can’t Get Over You – Joe

Never Let You Down – Kevon Edmonds

Joy & Pain – Avant

Overall, this on-point tribute should extend the fan base of those who have enjoyed the sometimes underappreciated Frankie Beverly and Maze’s contributions to soul music all over the world.

Peggy Oliver
The Urban Music Scene