ALOHA! PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT I'M DOING 👍🏾 I APPRECIATE YOU!

THIS BEST WAY FOR ME TO INTRODUCE GEORGE DUKE IS TO JUST GO BACK AND RECALL HOW I WAS INTRODUCED TO HIS MUSIC. AND WITH THAT MY MOST MEMORABLE MEMORY IS WHEN I HEARD THIS FUNKY ASS SONG ON THE RADIO CALLED ‘REACH FOR IT, RELEASED IN 1977. FROM WHAT I REMEMBER, GROWING UP IN WINSTON-SALEM, NC, I MAY HAVE HEARD THIS SONG ON RADIO STATION WQMG, WHICH WAS THE RADIO STATION LOCATED NEARBY IN GREENSBORO, NC. OR MAYBE IT WAS ONE OF THE ALBUMS THAT MY COUSIN BOBBY MAY HAVE LET MY DAD BORROW BACK IN 1978 OR SO. ‘REACH FOR IT’ AND ‘DON’T LET GO’ WERE RELEASED DURING A TIME OF INCREDIBLE MUSIC EXPERIMENTATION AND EXPLORATION, THE PHASE OF JAZZ-FUSION MUSIC BEING CREATED ALL DURING THE 1970’S. BUT ONE THING FOR SURE IS THAT WHEN GEORGE DUKE RELEASED WHAT WOULD BE CONSIDERED HIS BREAKTHROUGH ALBUM, AN ALBUM THAT WOULD COME ALONG AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DECADE WHICH WOULD BRING WHAT’S CONSIDERED ALSO A NEW EXCITING GENRE CALLED ‘SMOOTH JAZZ’, ‘A BRAZILIAN LOVE AFFAIR’ IN WAS RELEASED IN 1980. THIS LP FEATURED SEVERAL EXCEPTIONAL, WORLD CLASS BRAZILIAN MUSICIANS AND ARTISTS, SOME OF WHO WERE KNOWN AND RESPECTED IN AMERICAN JAZZ (AND SOME, R&B) MUSIC. FROM THERE, IN 1981, GEORGE DUKE THEN COLLABORATED AGAIN, WITH ONE OF JAZZ MUSIC’S GREATEST MUSICIANS, STANLEY CLARKE, AND THEY RELEASED THE AMAZING ‘THE CLARKE/DUKE’ PROJECT, A TOP SELLING ALBUM FOR BOTH ARTISTS IN EVERY WAY. IT YIELDED THE TOP 20 SINGLE “SWEET BABY” AS THAT SONG APPEARED ON BOTH THE POP & R&B SINGLES CHARTS, AS THE SONG PEAKED AT #6 ON THE BILLBOARD R&B CHART. THIS GREAT MAN, THIS GREAT ARTIST PASSED AWAY AND WENT ON TO GLORY IN AUGUST, 2013 BUT FOR ME THE ABSOLUTE LEGACY OF HIS ARTISTRY, HIS BODY OF WORK AND CONTRIBUTION TO NOT ONLY JAZZ, JAZZ FUSION BUT ALSO AS A PRODUCER OF SOME OF THE BEST R&B MUSIC OF THE 80’S AND 90’S, IS A FURTHER CERTIFICATION OF HOW GEORGE DUKE BECAME ONE OF MY FAVORITE MUSICAL ARTISTS AND AN ARTIST WHO’LL ALWAYS BE - A BLAZE STREET MUSICAL LEGEND!

1. NO RHYME, NO REASON (1992) - FROM THE SNAPSHOT RELEASE, FEATURING A BACKGROUND RIFF FROM THEN NEWCOMER NAMED RACHELLE FERRELL
2. WAITING - RACHELLE FERRELL (1992) from FERRELL’S SELF-TITLED DEBUT LP ‘RACHELLE FERRELL’ WHICH FEATURED PRODUCTION FROM GEORGE DUKE
3. JUST FOR YOU (1977) - FROM REACH FOR IT
4. SWEET BABY (1981) - FROM THE CLARKE-DUKE PROJECT
5. OOH BABY (1992) - FROM SNAPSHOT
6. STARTING AGAIN (1978) - FROM DON’T LET GO
7. REACH FOR IT (1977) - FROM REACH FOR IT
8. SAY THAT YOU WILL (1979) - FROM FOLLOW THE RAINBOW
9. 6 O’CLOCK (1992) - FROM SNAPSHOT
10. SAY HELLO (1989) - FROM NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
11. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN MY LIFE (1989) - FROM NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
12. DUKEY STICK (1978) - FROM DON’T LET GO
13. SAME OLE LOVE (1989) - FROM NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, (A RENDITION OF ANITA BAKER’S HIT SONG
14. SEARCHIN MY MIND (1997) - FROM REACH FOR IT
15. THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE (2006) - A TRACK BY BONEY JAMES FEATURING GEORGE DUKE FROM THE ‘SHINE’ RELEASE
16. SUPERWOMAN (2005) - FROM THE LP TITLED ‘DUKE’
17. RESCUE ME (1980) - FROM THE LP, ‘TWICE AS SWEET’, THIS PRODUCED BY GEORGE DUKE
18. BRAZILIAN LOVE AFFAIR (1980) - FROM THE LP OF THE SAME NAME

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