Jessica Cleaves (December 10, 1948 – May 2, 2014) – I Envy the Sunshine (1980)

George Clinton wrote and produced this beautiful jam for what was supposed to be the underappreciated singer's debut solo LP, but the album was never completed.

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The late great singer Jessica Cleaves would have turned 75 years old today. During her career, she graced The Friends of Distinction, Earth, Wind & Fire, Parliament / Funkadelic, and Raw Silk with her uniquely marvelous eight-octave vocals. By comparison, she had a vocal range three octaves higher than the renowned singer Minnie Riperton’s.

Jessica Marguerite Cleaves was born in Los Angeles. Her grandfather was Bishop of the city’s Phillips Temple, CME, her mother was a librarian, and her father worked for the post office. After high school, Cleaves studied at the California Institute of the Arts' School of Music, and later at UCLA. There, she met singers Harry Elston and Floyd Butler in the late sixties and joined their new vocal group the Friends of Distinction, along with singer Barbara Jean Love.

She sang lead on their superb love song “I Really Hope You Do,” off their debut album Grazin’, produced by John Florez and released in 1969 on RCA Records. It was also issued as the B-side to the LP’s hit single “Grazing in the Grass.”

After recording five albums in the space of three years with the Friends of Distinction, Cleaves left the group in 1971. At the time, she was living with actor and former football player Jim Brown, who managed the Friends. Brown introduced her to Maurice White when he was putting a revitalized version of Earth, Wind & Fire back together.

Cleaves soon joined EWF, replacing original female member Sherry Scott, and sang on two of their early albums. On Last Days And Time (1972), her vocals were notably featured on the stellar shout-out to mothers everywhere “Mom” and the beautiful love song “I’d Rather Have You,” written by her former UCLA classmate and great songwriter Skip Scarborough. He got his initial career break in 1969 when Cleaves introduced him to the rest of the Friends of Distinction and they decided to record one of his songs.

On EWF’s sublime LP Head To The Sky (1973), she hit impossibly high, otherworldly notes to close out the title track, and her backing vocals lent particular beauty to “The World’s A Masquerade,” also written by Scarborough. See our earlier posts on Skip Scarborough for more on their collaborations, and on Friends of Distinction co-founder Harry Elston for more on her time with that group.

After a show in Boston, Cleaves left Earth, Wind & Fire abruptly. Some of the group’s members at the time claimed she had developed a drug addiction. Cleaves relocated to Detroit, where she began collaborating with George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic. From the mid-seventies through the nineties, she appeared on numerous P-Funk albums, including Funkadelic’s Tales Of Kidd Funkadelic (1976), Uncle Jam Wants You (1979), and The Electric Spanking Of War Babies (1981); Parliament’s GloryHallaStoopid (Pin The Tale On The Funky) (1979) and Trombipulation (1980); and Computer Games (1982) by George Clinton.

In 1980, Clinton wrote and produced her little known but beautiful jam “I Envy the Sunshine.” In a 2018 interview, he said he wrote the song for her while in Maui, relaxing in a particularly beautiful spot with a panoramic view of the ocean.  He was marveling at how much the sun must have been enjoying shining its glow on all the happy people he could see on the beaches, and wished he could reach the same level of happiness.

It was arranged by Bernie Worrell, and featured Cordell Mosson on bass, Blackbyrd McKnight on guitar, Fred Wesley on trombone, Maceo Parker on sax, Michael and Randy Brecker on sax and trumpet, David Spradley on keyboards, Tyrone Lampkin on drums, and all three members of Brandye on backing vocals (Cynthia Douglas, Donna Davis, and Pam Vincent).

The track was supposed to be for her debut solo album, then in production, slated for a 1981 release on Clinton’s new Uncle Jam label which was nationally distributed by Columbia/CBS.  But the album was never finished.  Unfortunately, it was a casualty of Uncle Jam’s abrupt dissolution in the wake of Zapp frontman Roger Troutman’s debut solo LP being released by Warner Bros. Records, not Uncle Jam, where the album had been promised to end up.  Clinton subsequently severed ties with both Warner Bros. and Troutman.

“I Envy The Sunshine” was eventually released more than a decade later in 1993 on the George Clinton Family Series Volume 3 - Plush Funk CD. Another standout cut that was also intended for her debut album was the heartfelt “Send A Gram,” which was released on Volume 1 of the same CD series in 1992.

Cleaves had one more act to add to her impressive resume. In the early 80s, former Crown Heights Affair members Ron Dean Miller and Bert Reid put together a new group called Raw Silk, and invited Cleaves to join as part of a trio of female vocalists alongside Sybil Thomas and Tenita Jordan.

The group signed to West End Records and their debut 1982 single “Do It To The Music” hit #5 on dance charts and #65 R&B.

To this day, Cleaves remains under-recognized for her amazing vocal talents, in part because she logged time in many different groups and never released her own solo albums. But she was a truly talented singer who deserved a much bigger career.

Happy Heavenly 75th Birthday to the fabulous Jessica Cleaves.

Further info:

“The story of how Earth, Wind & Fire reached cosmic heights,” by Ericka Blount Danois, Wax Poetics, Issue 47, May/June 2011.

“Jessica Cleaves: A Silky, Soulful — And Funky — Voice Goes Silent,” obituary, NPR, May 5, 2014.

“Soul Singer Jessica Cleaves Dies at 65,” obituary, Variety, May 7, 2014.

#soul #funk #disco #FoD #EWF #PFunk #JessicaCleaves