Dee Dee Bridgewater (born May 27, 1950) – That's the Way Love Should Feel (1980)

The award-winning singer's second self-titled LP was produced by Thom Bell and featured this beautiful love jam, co-written by Preston and Alan Glass.

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Dee Dee Bridgewater is an award-winning singer/songwriter and actress who hosted NPR’s long-running show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater for more than two decades.

Denise Eileen Garrett was born in Memphis but raised in Flint, Michigan. She picked up her love for jazz at an early age from her father who played the trumpet. In high school she started singing in local clubs with a rock/R&B trio. She first attended Michigan State University, then the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she sang with the school’s jazz band.

In 1970, she met her husband, trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater. They married and moved to New York City, where Cecil played with Horace Silver and Dee Dee became the lead vocalist for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra big band.

She went on to perform with jazz greats including Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and many more. Her first solo album Afro Blue (1974) was released in Japan on the Trio Records label when she was 23 years old.

Also in 1974, she starred in the original Broadway production of The Wiz, winning a Tony for her role as Glinda the Good Witch. Two years later, she released her second studio album, this time on Atlantic Records. It was her first of two self-titled albums, and was co-produced by Gene Page and Jerry Wexler.

The LP’s highlight was the gospel-flavored “My Prayer,” co-written by Georges Boulanger and Jimmy Kennedy. Two versions of the track were featured. A “Fast” disco edit was the opening cut, and a ballad version closed the album out.

The album’s stellar backing band included bassist Wilton Felder and keyboardist Joe Sample of the Crusaders, Bobbye Jean Hall on congas, Roger Hawkins on drums, Ray Parker Jr. and Funk Brother Melvin "Wah Wah Watson" Ragin on guitars, and Jim Gilstrap on backing vocals.

In 1980, Thom Bell produced Bridgewater’s second self-titled album, this one for Elektra Records. Bell’s newly hired staff writers Preston Glass and his brother Alan co-wrote the beautiful jam “That's the Way Love Should Feel” for the LP. It was their only contribution to a record packed with compositions from some of the best songwriters of the previous decade, including Bell and Linda Creed, Joseph Jefferson, and Leroy Bell and Casey James.

Another of the album’s masterpieces was its classy, lyrically poignant opening cut, “Lonely Disco Dancer,” which was co-written by Bell, Jefferson and Richard Roebuck.

The backing band that Bell assembled for Dee Dee Bridgewater consisted of many MFSB all-stars, like Bobby Eli on guitar, Larry Washington on percussion, Charles Collins on drums, and Don Renaldo handling strings and horns. It also featured Bob Babbit on bass, Casey James and Bell himself on keyboards, his nephew Leroy Bell on percussion, and Frankie Bleu and the Sweethearts of Sigma (Barbara Ingram, Carla Benson and Yvette Benton) on backing vocals.

Released in the year the anti-disco backlash reached full speed, the LP sadly did not chart. It was Bridgewater’s last studio album until Victim of Love in 1989.

#soul #funk #disco #DeeDeeBridgewater