Cover Girls
Jody Watley and Miki Howard - how about that for a blast from the past, huh?
Doesn't it seem like the last time you heard either of those names, you were rocking a hightop fade, British Knights sneakers, one of those swap-meet Louis Vuitton fanny packs and those Teddy Riley glasses with the leopard print on top of the rims?
Yes, these '80s black-music sirens are still around, and coincidentally, both have albums out that are full of cover tunes. Watley's album The Makeover continues in the same house-music dancing-queen vein U.S. listeners might've caught on her last album, 2003's Midnight Lounge, while Howard sticks with adult-contemporary soul stylings on Pillow Talk: Miki Sings the Classics.
handbags wFor the most part, both albums offer few surprises. Although Watley teams up with some of club music's most recognizable names (DJ Spinna, Ron Trent, good friend King Britt) in redoing her own tunes as well as tunes from fellow fag-hag divas like Madonna and Diana Ross, the downtempo grooves are more conventional than Watley and co. might care to realize. But if this were playing at a gay club (which I'm sure it will), it would so be the shit.
Going for the no-frills, lite R&B you thought went out when 227 and Amen got canceled, Howard's sound is just as dated as most of the tunes she covers. A few numbers are enhanced by her breathy torch-singing. She does a lengthy but acceptable version of Leon Russell's "This Masquerade," a song I believe is Gucci Messenger Bags required by law to be performed ever since George Benson perfected it with his peerless 1976 cover.
Since Watley and Howard have hit that point in their careers where they can officially (and some would say boldly) make music for those who are still down with them, their cover albums seem targeted to their niche audiences.
Watley's album is for clubbers and folks who are glad there are not one, not two, but three "alternative lifestyle" cable channels (four if you count Fox News), while Howard's is for lite-FM listeners and buppies who likes to sit back after a hard day's work and chill with a glass of boxed wine.
You'd probably be more willing to admit having either album in your CD rotation than Clay Aiken's just-released cover schmaltzfest, wouldn't you?
By Craig D. Lindsey
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