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First Post Of 2012: Vesta On TV One Unsung [Post a Comment]
Happy New Years, everyone! I watched the season debut of Unsung, featuring the late Vesta Williams, and it maintained its usual level of excellence. This was made all the more poignant by the fact that it featured the very final interviews with Vesta Williams just shortly before her untimely death in a Los Angeles hotel room at age 53.
I followed her music back in the day from her debut with Once Bitten, Twice Shy and Don’t You Blow A Good Thing to her classic Congratulations and her New Jack Swing hit Do Ya. I also downloaded her latter day CD Distant Lover — a CD of cover songs — from eMusic.
However, I did not know about all the professional strife she endured. with her solid style of singing, she could easily have been the next Chaka Khan. However, like the late Phyllis Hyman, she did not get the full crossover machine that she should have.
Apparently, some soul artists are too soulful for record labels to consider pushing them into crossover status. If you didn’t have pop inclinations like Whitney Houston, Prince, the late Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, or Mariah Carey (remember, we’re talking the eighties and nineties here), you didn’t get the pop crossover machine. This left a lot of soul artists out in the cold as far as that superstar crossover thing was concerned.
Her depression over that led to her weight gain and her drug use, both of which were sad. Of course, the really sad thing is the fact that she did eventually kick the cocaine habit and lose the weight and was doing new things again before her untimely death.
Again, as usual, Unsung did a great job with its subject. Until next week, when they feature the journeyman of soul, Bobby Womack.
Happy New Years, everyone! I watched the season debut of Unsung, featuring the late Vesta Williams, and it maintained its usual level of excellence. This was made all the more poignant by the fact that it featured the very final interviews with Vesta Williams just shortly before her untimely death in a Los Angeles hotel room at age 53.
I followed her music back in the day from her debut with Once Bitten, Twice Shy and Don’t You Blow A Good Thing to her classic Congratulations and her New Jack Swing hit Do Ya. I also downloaded her latter day CD Distant Lover — a CD of cover songs — from eMusic.
However, I did not know about all the professional strife she endured. with her solid style of singing, she could easily have been the next Chaka Khan. However, like the late Phyllis Hyman, she did not get the full crossover machine that she should have.
Apparently, some soul artists are too soulful for record labels to consider pushing them into crossover status. If you didn’t have pop inclinations like Whitney Houston, Prince, the late Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, or Mariah Carey (remember, we’re talking the eighties and nineties here), you didn’t get the pop crossover machine. This left a lot of soul artists out in the cold as far as that superstar crossover thing was concerned.
Her depression over that led to her weight gain and her drug use, both of which were sad. Of course, the really sad thing is the fact that she did eventually kick the cocaine habit and lose the weight and was doing new things again before her untimely death.
Again, as usual, Unsung did a great job with its subject. Until next week, when they feature the journeyman of soul, Bobby Womack.
Posted by T-Mad on 01/02/2012 at 11:03 PM
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