When I first heard Barry speak on a TV interview in the
1970s the TV actually shook as his voice was so low. The guy had the voice that
every man would have loved to have as we all knew the ladies would love it. Add
to that he could write and produce and sing and perform. Gosh this man was a
love god.
Barry White was a five time Grammy award winner and Barry
Eugene White was born in 1944 and died in 2003 from renal failure, plus other
complications because of his weight.
Barry had been responsible in the 70s music for the Love
Unlimited Orchestra who had a big hit with It My Be Winter Outside (But In MyHeart It’s Spring) and Loves Theme, he also wrote the huge hit "Walking InThe Rain, With The One I Love", later Barry went solo and became the
"The Walrus of Love" to his fans.
But as a solo performer Barry had everything. But it was not
always going to be this way as Barry became involved in gangs in Texas and was
actually sent to jail at the age of seventeen.
After jail he turned to music and is the man responsible for Bob and
Earl’s Harlem Shuffle.
Barry has his first UK single with the 1973 No. 23 hit calledI’m Gonna Give You Just A Little More Love Baby which had the Ghostbuster Ray
Park Jnr on piano. The next single flopped but the third single that year was
the great Never, Never Gonna Give You Up from the Stone Gon ’ album, this song
made Barry a huge star in the UK and now his albums were selling heavily as
women just could not get enough of that sexy voice.
Moving on to 1974 and Barry gave us the top ten hit Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe which seemed to reinforce Barry as a sex god as all his singles had that
feeling of pure between the sheets sex. Not a bad thing to hear when you are a
teenage boy or girl.
That same year Barry had his very first UK No. 1 with You’re
The First The Last My Everything which was co-written by Peter Radcliffe who
wrote it twenty one years before as a country song and never released it.
1975 and Barry was a mega star now with three top twenty
hits that were What AM I Going To Do With You, I’ll Do Anything You Want Me To
and the disco song Let The Music Play. 1972 gave him a No. 2 hit with You See
The Trouble With Me which again had Ray Parker Jnr on the track and came from
the best-selling album Let The ,Music Play. Two more singles that year followed
with Baby, We Better Try And Get It Together and Don’t Make Me Wait Too Long.
I loved Barry White I thought the man just wrote and
produced great songs, but surprisingly at school I was a minority Barry White
fan. But Barry still gave my school mates a well-deserved slap around the face
in 1976 with the No. 2 hit You See The Trouble With Me and followed by TWO more
top twenty singles that year. In 1977 he had no top twenty hits at all.
In 1978 he had only one chart hit with Just The Way You Are
which was written and a hit for Billy Joel. Barry’s version was the better
version as far as I was concerned and was a fitting single to leave the charts
in the 1970s.
Barry White - Rare Radio Interview (1978)
