Gap Band, The - Fresh Takes '2018

Tracks list

Tracklist:

1. Oops Upside Your Head (05:12)
2. Outstanding (05:40)
3. Early In The Morning (06:33)
4. Burning Rubber (06:24)
5. Yearning For Your Love (08:55)
6. Party Train (07:03)


 moreBorn and raised in Tulsa, the Wilson brothers began singing and playing
in their father's Pentecostal church; at home, music lessons were mandatory.
They learned various instruments, primarily the piano. As much as they despised
the lessons at the time, they proved to be invaluable. Ronnie, the oldest
sibling, established his own band by the age of 14. Charlie, a few years
younger, joined a rival group a couple years later. One night, the two bands
were performing across the street from one another. Ronnie stopped by to check
out Charlie grooving on the organ. While there, Ronnie asked Charlie to join his
band for 50 dollars over what he was making. Though Charlie's bandmates doubled
that offer, he joined his brother's band. Ronnie gave him no choice.

At a gig not too long after the two had joined forces, the bass player quit and
Ronnie and Charlie summoned their younger brother Robert, barely 14, to take the
spot. For a short while, the group performed without a name, but they eventually
settled on the Greenwood, Archer & Pine Street Band. As advertising such a name
on posters was cumbersome, the Wilsons shortened the name to the G.A.P. Street
Band. Due to a typographical error, they were advertised as the Gap Band, and it
stuck.

The band performed at venues around the Tulsa area, including country & western
joints, tennis clubs, and rock clubs. However, by the middle of the 1970s,
Charlie left Tulsa to explore his possibilities in Los Angeles. A short time
later, he convinced his brothers to join him. The bandmembers floundered until
they met entertainment businessman Lonnie Simmons through their friend,
singer/songwriter/musician D.J. Rogers. Simmons owned a recording studio and
nightclub, both of which were dubbed Total Experience (also the name that would
appear on Gap Band releases during the '80s), and signed the Wilsons along with
their nine bandmates.

The Gap Band's first album, Magician's Holiday, was released in 1974 to little
fanfare. A self-titled album followed three years later; despite guest
appearances from D.J. Rogers, Reverend James Cleveland, Chaka Khan, Leon
Russell, and Les McCann, it didn't leave any chart impressions, either, though
it did feature a pair of minor hits in "Out of the Blue (Can You Feel It)" -- an
excellent, mellow, electric piano-driven song written by Charlie -- and "Little
Bit of Love."

A deal with Mercury put the Gap Band on the fast track. A self-titled 1979 album
reached number ten on Billboard's R&B chart, led by the success of "Shake"
(number four R&B) and "Open Up Your Mind" (number 13 R&B). They followed it
later in the year with The Gap Band II, an album that spawned two more Top Ten
R&B singles. Released in 1980, The Gap Band III was their first number one R&B
album, where their sound became even more distinctive. It wasn't just the voice
of Charlie that stood out. "Burn Rubber (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)" was the group's
first major hit dominated by a synthesizer bassline, provided by Cavin
Yarbrough, who scored around the same time with his and Alisa Peoples' "Don't
Stop the Music." Just as those two songs defined the sound of clubs in 1980,
"Yearning for Your Love" quickly became a classic ballad, and was covered a
decade later by Guy (whose Aaron Hall was the younger singer most evidently
inspired by Charlie's sound and style).

There's no denying that the Gap Band's peak came during the early '80s. This
notion would have been easy to predict as early as 1982, when they released
three major hits: "Early in the Morning" (number one R&B; covered by Robert
Palmer), "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" (number two R&B), and "Outstanding" (number
one R&B). Even so, it's not as if the remainder of the decade was dry for them,
not when they released 16 additional charting A-sides (including the title song
to Keenan Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka), six of which reached the R&B
Top Ten, as well as popular albums on an almost annual basis. Their popularity
waned only when they slowed their recording schedule. Three studio Gap Band
albums were released during the 1990s. Charlie Wilson concentrated on his solo
career, starting in 1992 with You Turn My Life Around. The singer began to reach
out to a younger audience in 1996, when Snoop Dogg featured him on "Snoop's
Upside Your Head." Further collaborations with Snoop, R. Kelly, and Justin
Timberlake followed throughout the 2000s. In August 2010, Robert Wilson died of
a heart attack. Ronnie Wilson died on November 2, 2021, at the age of 73. ©
Andy Kellman



The Gap Band - Fresh Takes.rar - 288.4 MB

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