James Ingram on a quest for timeless music
By Devi M. Asmarani
JAKARTA (JP): R&B singer James Ingram knows exactly what draws people to his music. Those mushy love songs.
Whether he is serenading lovers with his ballads or grooving to a dance tune, he never seems to stop spouting the word love.
Some of these love songs have been compiled recently in his new best-of album Forever More, now sold in Indonesia under the title James Ingram -- Just The Best.
"The song that's being promoted in this album is called I Believe in Those Love Songs, I should've named it that," he said in a recent phone interview with The Jakarta Post from his studio in Los Angeles. The album includes his cover of the recent hit of his younger peer R. Kelly, I believe I Can Fly.
Outside his songs, James is not all lovey-dovey. He is unfaltering and musically driven.
Music is clearly his passion, what led him to leave his hometown of Akron, Ohio, after high school for Los Angeles, where he began the steps toward a career in the industry. He had started pretty early with teen band called the Revelation Funk in Akron.
In Los Angeles, he toured with artists like Ray Charles, the Coasters and Leon Haywood, before his voice caught the attention of singer-cum-producer Quincy Jones, who is known for having developed some of the world's most talented soul musicians. Quincy asked him to perform a duet with him on his 1980 album The Dude.
Ingram's first solo hit Just Once won him Grammy nominations for Best New Artist, Best Pop Male Vocal and Best R&B Vocal, with him picking up the awards in the last two categories.
Some of his songs are better known than him; he keeps a relatively low profile on the international pop music scene.
It is also due to his duets with artists as diverse as Kenny Rogers, Michael Bolton, the Pointer Sisters, Luther Vandross and Boz Scaggs and Linda Rondstadt.
Some of the duets have been used as soundtracks for various films, including Somewhere Out There in Steven Spielberg's animated movie An American Tail and even soap operas like General Hospital, with the theme song Baby Come to Me with Patty Austin.
His duet with Michael McDonald on Yah Mo Be There earned him a Grammy award for Best R&B Performance by Group or Duo.
Ingram is perfectly happy that he may be less recognized than his music. After all, his eternal quest is to "find a song that will outlive him".
He also writes music for himself and other artists, including Michael Jackson.
The father of six who now resides in Los Angeles says he spends his times doing normal activities, like traveling with his family and going to the movies. He enjoys running track five times a week.
In the middle of this month, he will embark on a promo-tour with his wife and manager Debbie in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia. He is then set to travel to Germany, New York and Brazil to perform. When he returns home, he will start touring with fellow R&B singer Peabo Bryson from November through December.
He talked to the Post about his own and other artists' music.
Before the brief interview ended, he carried an impromptu tune, showing that his striking voice can turn anything into a soulful song.
Question: Tell me a bit about this album coming up.
Answer: Forever More is my favorite love songs, three brand- new songs and those I sang with other artists. There also are three songs -- Just Once, One Hundred Ways and I Don't Have a Heart -- that I recut into new versions, and I have some of my duets that I like in my career on the album.
Q: Why not a new album instead of a best-of?
A: Well, I haven't had a record out for so long. That whole process of starting with new materials, it could take another whole year to find the material. Next year, we'll start with a new one.
Q: Most of it consists of ballads and love songs. Are you preserving the legacy of being a singer of love songs?
A: The theme of the album being promoted here is called I Believe In Love Songs. I should've named the album 'I believe in those love songs'.
Q: Some critics have criticized you for "flawless technique and minimal emotional attachment" and that your specialty is mostly "sappy theatrical showpieces for soundtrack". What do you say to that?
A: I say great.
Q: Really?
A: Yeah, because most people who criticize cannot stand up on the stage and sing with me. So I could care less.
Q: That's a good way of putting it...
A: It's fine to me, I love all of it (criticism). But come to the microphone and sing (laughing).
Q: What is your idea of good music anyway?
A: Good music has three components: melody, great lyrics and great chords for the rest of the changes.
Q: And who represents that in today's R&B music scene?
A: There are a few people who represent that to me. I love a lot of stuff that R. Kelly's doing, a lot of stuff of Bryan McKnight. Very musical, that's my taste
Q: Is that why you sang R. Kelly's song on the album?
A: Every once in a while I hear a song on the radio that I wish I had written. I wish had written that one. That's one of my favorite songs, my favorite record.
Q: You do write your own stuff but it seems that many of your hits weren't written by you. Would you say that you are less a songwriter than you are a vocal artist?
A: As an artist I want to sing the best material. As a songwriter, I'm trying to get on a James Ingram album, too.
Q: So you don't completely depend on your own works?
A: No, if that's the case, I would have had a whole album with just my songs. And I can easily do that because I have hundreds and hundreds of songs. Like I say, as a songwriter I'm trying to get on James Ingram's album. I have to beat the rest of the material. The longest it takes for me to make a record is no more than maybe three months. The hardest and the longest part of the record is to find the song that's going to outlive you. That's not an easy thing. How many days you write? It doesn't just come, doesn't just fall off trees like that.
Q: Who is your favorite songwriter?
A: (Those who write) the kind of songs that outlive them. The legacy of having the best songwriters in the world and the best musicians and all that stuff. Some of this stuff is just timeless. It's a quest that I'll be on for the rest of my life, trying to find a song that will outlive me.
Q: Which one is your favorite song out of all the songs you've sung so far, and which do you think preserves this legacy?
A: My favorite song, in which not only is it my great song but also because it started my career, is Just One by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
Q: So you don't think it's really important for a singer to write his or her own songs?
A: If you can write, fine. A lot of people do write their own material and I believe that they suffer because they're not open to outside stuff that could be better. I want the best, I don't care about who wrote it.
Q: You've done a lot of duets with a wide range of artists, and it worked really nicely. How do you combine the sometimes really contrasting range of vocals into a solid performance?
A: The duets start off by the song itself. It's not like we set up and say 'ok, let's do a duet'. It's always a song that comes out as a beautiful duet. Whether for an album or a movie, you have to like the song first, then they try to find duet partners whose voices would complement you.
Q: In other words, if a song is good, the performance is going to be good...
A: Well, without the song there's nothing to talk about. I've never set up to do a duet. The only time that ever happened was in my first album when Michael McDonald and myself went in to write a song that we both were going to sing.
Q: But do you did it with, for example, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, who sing a kind of music completely different to the kind of music you sing or play...
A: They have albums or projects and they call me ... you can call me, but if I don't like the song, we don't have nothing to talk about.
Q: You've come along way from Akron, Ohio, to singing backup vocals for a Grammy winner. What have you learned from this vast experience and how has working with artists like Ray Charles and Quincy Jones shaped you?
A: What I learned from Quincy Jones is, number one, to be myself as an artist at all times, at all cost. What I learned from Ray as a singer, is just from watching him sing. When you hear Michael McDonald, Michael Bolton and myself sing, a lot of people say we sound alike. I've been around Ray so much that I learned so much from him as a singer. Ray taught me my first production skills in terms of producing because he has his own company and record studio.
Q: What's the biggest musical influence in you besides the two names you've mentioned?
A: The biggest musical influence in my life is my oldest brother Henry.
Q: How is that?
A: He's six years older than me. He's world accomplished in piano, he can read (music), and he has the gift to hear songs on the radio for the first time and not only play the melody but a lot the of the arrangement. Just hear it one time. My younger brother and I both had to slow the record down to learn to play it.
Q: But he never went professional?
A: No.
Q: I understand you came from a big musical family of six children...
A: Yeah, my baby brother was in the hit group Switch in Motown back in the '70s.