Patrice Rushen - Straight From The Heart (1982)

Artist:  Patrice Rushen
Title:  Straight From The Heart
Release:  1982
Format:  LP
Label:  Elektra Records
Catalog#  ELK 52352

“Straight From The Heart” was Patrice Rushen’s most successful album, at least from a sales standpoint: it peaked at number 14 on the pop chart. Still working with a core group of associates including Freddie Washington, Charles Mims, Paul M. Jackson, and Marlo Henderson (along with a still young Gerald Albright) that went back to her earlier Elektra albums, the material here is as slick as ever, but not at the expense of lighter rhythms or less memorable melodies. Much of the album’s popularity can be attributed to the club hit “Forget Me Nots,” Rushen’s most-known single, a breezy, buoyant mixture of handclaps, fingersnaps, twisting bass, and Rushen’s typically blissful (and not overplayed) electric piano, not to mention the incorporation of a bad bass-and-percussion breakdown. (If you were born after the mid-’70s or so, you’d be more likely to recognize the song as the basis of Will Smith’s “Men in Black.”) Beyond a forgettable ballad or two, the only disappointment is the Brenda Russell collaboration on “Breakout!,” where rock affectations (gnarling electric guitar, grimacing vocal tactics that suit neither Rushen nor Russell) damage what could’ve been a bigger hit. “Remind Me,” despite not being released as a single, is a sweet and low-slung groove that has been sampled and interpolated by no less than a dozen significant rap and R&B songs including Faith Evans’ “Fallin’ in Love,” Notorious B.I.G.’s “Unbelievable,” MoKenStef’s “He’s Mine,” and Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “I Need You Tonight.” But it’s not like anything about this album requires that kind of validation.


Side one
1.  Forget Me Nots  (4:45)
2.  I Was Tired of Being Alone  (3:52)
3.  All We Need  (5:54)
4.  Number One” (instrumental)  (4:59)

Side two
1.  Where There Is Love  (3:11)
2.  Breakout!  (4:07)
3.  If Only  (3:23)
4.  Remind Me  (5:18)
5.  (She Will) Take You Down to Love  (4:24)

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