Like his contemporaries Luther Vandross, Howard Hewett and Keith Sweat, singer Jeffrey Osborne faces a dilemma every time he goes into the studio to record a new album: How do you make inroads with the pop audience without alienating your R & B base?
Osborne`s solution is to not dwell on it.
”I`ve been doing this for a long time and I think that crossover success has to happen naturally,” he said, relaxing in his manager`s suite at the Ambassador West while in Chicago to promote his first release for Arista Records, ”Only Human.”
”I don`t think you can force it. If you sit down to write a pop song, it comes out sounding like you tried to write a pop song. You just have to be yourself.”
That attitude has served Osborne well in a 17-year recording career, first with the group L.T.D. and, for the last eight years, as a solo artist. Although he has tasted pop success with hits like ”You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song)”; his duet with Dionne Warwick, ”Love Power”; and perhaps his best-known song of all, ”On the Wings of Love,” Osborne`s identity as an R & B artist remains.
That`s why he made sure that his new album`s title track, a romantic ballad aimed at black radio, is also its first single.
”I didn`t want to come out of the box with a pop song,” said Osborne, who spent most of his career with A & M Records before signing with Arista.
”I felt my allegiance was with black radio. If it wasn`t for black radio, I wouldn`t be here. I know that a lot of people were concerned when I switched labels that Arista would try to turn me into a pop artist. That`s why I wanted the first single to be R & B.”
Ballads have always been Osborne`s strong suit, and while ”Only Human”
doesn`t mess with a successful formula, it also features some elements on a few songs that might surprise some of the 42-year-old singer`s longtime fans. ”Baby Wait a Minute” is a dance-oriented number in the new jack swing style that features rapper Bright Eyes; the Roberta Flack hit ”Feel Like Making Love” is given a funky, electronic makeover.
Although he says he`s open to new influences, Osborne laments that much of today`s R & B and pop music is oriented to a groove rather than a melody.
”The biggest reason I signed with Arista is that Clive Davis (Arista`s president) still believes in real songs,” he said. ”A lot of record companies want you to get into whatever`s trendy. If hip hop or new jack swing is big this week, that`s what they expect you to do. And that`s not me. With this record, I wanted to be able to do what I do best, which is to sing ballads and `real` songs.”
One factor that has enabled Osborne to call most of his own career shots is that, unlike many solo R & B artists, he writes most of his material. On
”Only Human,” he wrote or co-wrote seven of the album`s 11 songs and co-produced most of them with his main writing partner, Barry Eastmond. He makes the distinction between a ”record” and a ”song.”
”The difference between a hit song and a hit record is the difference between a long-term career versus a year of exposure,” he said. ”A hit record is nice and will keep you going for a year or so, but a hit song like
`On the Wings of Love` is something you can build a career out of. It`s something that never dies.”
With ”Only Human” having just been released, Osborne won`t be performing in Chicago until late spring. Like many performers, the quiet, soft-spoken offstage Osborne presents a very different persona on stage. He says he relishes singing in front of an audience, an art considerably different from performing in the recording studio.
”When you`re on stage, you have to make people believe what you`re singing,” he said. ”And to do that you have to become a part of the song yourself. If you can`t do that, you won`t be very believable, and the audience can always sense that. There`s no place to hide when you`re up on stage.”
A large part of his audience is female, but Osborne, a married father of four, plays down his sex symbol image.
”It`s very flattering, but I don`t take it seriously,” he said. ”I think maybe I have that image because my music reaches a lot of women. Part of it is the fact that I have a deep baritone voice, and part of it is that I sing a lot of romantic, mushy stuff. I try to say things in my music that men sometimes have difficulty saying to women.
”People are always coming up to me and telling me that my music helps get them `in the mood,` ” he said with a laugh. ”I take that as a compliment.”
