For more than 25 years, Anita Baker’s voice has been one of the most distinctive and beloved in R&B. The 54-year-old singer release her first studio album in seven years last December. The single, “Lately,” like other tunes on the collection, “Only Forever” exudes the elegant but earthy warmth that has made her singing synonymous with romance.
“I’d love to be the political voice of my generation, but that’s not my gift,” says Baker, “Typically, the theme of my albums, if there is a theme, is, ‘How does it feel?’ And that always leads to love songs. It just does.”
“Lately, I’ve been writing odes to my family,” Baker says. Her younger son, Ed, 18, starts college next month; like brother Walter, he’s studying music.
“So I’m an empty nester now,” Baker says.
“There’s a song, ‘Free,’ that just came through me, watching them go out
into the world. I want them to hear my voice and to have advice readily
available to them.”
Her sons’ decision to enter into their mom’s
famously risky profession hasn’t been a source of anxiety. My father worked on assembly
lines in Detroit while I was growing up. But he told me, ‘Life is
short. Do what you want to do.’
Baker continues to apply her father’s counsel in her own career. For “Only Forever,” she “initially recorded everything live to analog, to be true to my soul. But I also want to be an artist of this time, to embrace 21st-century recording techniques. And with amazing producers, I was able to balance those goals.”
Essence entertainment director Cori Murray expects that the classic sound suggested by Lately will resonate with fans “who have been waiting for Anita to come back. Her popular songs were true love songs. Even if she sang about heartache and pain, there was a beautiful sweetness.”
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20130425adad6095fd4e7fb21c35c42ecd308f8c1a1.wma
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