Customer Reviews

Heart Mind & Soul

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the Best Albums that I Heard from 1994.El Debarge teamed up with Babyface&what a team they made?"Where you are" with Stevie Wonder on Harmonica was tight.El brought the Pain again on vocals.Jermaine Dupri Produced "Slide" which worked."I'll Be There" has a strong resemblence to a Spinners cut easily.El hasn't had a Offical Album released since but has done alot of session work with DJ Quik,Quincy Jones amongest others.He has been Sampled&Looped to death from BlackStreet,2Pac,Mary J.Bliege,Biggie,Ashanti,etc...El Debarge is the real deal with Hsi Talent.this Album worked really well.some of the Best Production that Babyface has ever been associated with.

I have been listening to this CD nonstop since getting it five hours ago. I became a DeBarge fan while in middle school in the mid 80's when they came on the scene. Recently, I have been getting some old collections of their stuff to put on a new mp4 player (Meizu M6 SL) I have, but I never did have any of El's solo work. I have even been checking out some old Youtube videos and catching up on recent DeBarge news. Their mother has an excellent website about this family and has recently written a book about the family.

I have always liked El's rendition of Marvin Gaye's After the Dance with Fourplay so decided to buy his In The Storm CD, which some said was pretty much a tribute to Gaye. There are only about 2 songs on it that I like.. maybe another 2 that are tolerable. Too much funk for me.

I decided to give Heart, Mind and Soul a try after reading the reviews here and listening to the samples. Well I was in my car during the first listen of this CD. The first song.. Where You are is a mid tempo joint that had me snapping my fingers and saying, That is the *&^%! Nice way to start a CD. Next song, Can't Get Enough... mid-level slow jam... nice song give it a 9/10. Next song.. old school slow jam.. with Babyface... I give it a 7 for no other reason that, with these two, I wanted to hear more verses.. instead of the going back and forth with the chorus. They do compliment eachother well, but I could have used a little less Babyface.

Ok.. so now I am on song 4... You Got The Love.. another.. old school slow jam. A 10! So now I am at the 5th song and as far as I am concerned, the CD is already a hit because in my lifetime, I have purchased only one other CD whose first 4 songs were hits with me. Most are lucky if they get that in an entire CD!

Waited for the let down. None came! I mean the closest it comes to letting me down is with .. It's Got to be Real and Slide because I do not like the first part of the songs, but by the middle.. I was there nodding my head again and feeling both astounded and sad. Astounded that this is such a great CD.. and sad because in addition to El's and his family's drug and legal problems, here is another Black male talent that does not get recognition; overshadowed by the bling and booty noise movement in the music industry. Yet, so many people sample his music. It is funny to be playing some of his music and have a young'n become interested in it because they think he has sampled someone like Ahante!

The production values on the last three songs will remind many listeners of Marvin Gaye's music. By the way, if you are a Marvin Gaye fan, check out Christion's Ghetto Cyrano. It is the CD to which I made reference earlier! It certainly is the modern day Inner City Blues! Another talent and CD that has been slept on, but should have been platinum.

There is not one bad song on Heart, Mind, & Soul. Songs are from slow jam to mid/slightly up-tempo jams that will make you wish you were back at the roller rink putting down your smooth moves.. going backwards..of course. Some of them bring back that feeling evoked by Tevin's Campbell's I'm Ready, which for some reason has always been a hit with 35+ adults although he was just a teen when he made it.

El ends the CD with a beautiful spiritual song. Don't worry.. it is not preachy, just lovely and could easily have been a love song. Production on this CD is near perfection! Actually one of the things that stands out for me is El's background vocals. And speaking of background vocals, most of them are done by El or former members of DeBarge. El (co)-wrote/produced most of the songs. His brothers and he also play instruments on many. Stevie Wonder plays the harmonica on the first song, Where You Are.

If there could be an improvement on this, it would be that El did not sing in falsetto so often. You Are My Dream, I think, would have been better off without so much falsetto, although it is his strongest demonstration of his range using it. Starlight, Moonlight, Candelight is one song that gets better as the song goes on.. and I love everything about it except that chorus.. also it seems to end quite suddenly!

Basically.. you only need two things to know you should buy this CD.
1. You enjoy El's or similar voices... (Gaye, Maxwell...)
2. You enjoy R & B. NOTE I said R & B.. not Hip Hop!

You answer yes to both of these and you have no reason not to have this CD in your collection.

It would be great if El and Chante Moore could collaborate again or El and Maxwell could get together and do some new music.

Great CD. I only hope he gets things right in his life and can get back in the studio again.. and that people actually honor this talent by buying his music!

I'm just in love with this cd is really mainly what I have to say about this work by El.I'm sorry I found this a little too late,but better late than never.He does have a very much influenced Marvin Gaye vibe and since I bought all of the popular Debarge albums in the 80's and the FourPlay cd I felt this would make a great addition to my Debarge collection.His work with Baby face on here is superb.My favorites are Where You Are (Stevie Wonder on harmonica),You Are My Dream and Heart,Mind and Soul.

I've loved DeBarge since 1982 when "All This Love" was released (my junior year of high school). Although I really liked their music, I thought they were simply riding the coat tales of big brothers Bobby & Tommy from the fabulous group SWITCH. El & Bobby sound alot alike (which makes sense because Bobby was El's mentor), even their stage presence is similar but there is a distinct and noticeable difference between their vocal sound & abilities. Bobby DeBarge has the most AMAZING falsetto voice I've ever heard. No artist I know of can even come close to touching the mere surface of Bobby's talent. Bobby had such a pure falsetto voice and an at minimum 4 octave range. He was simply astounding! (check out "They'll Never Be", "I Call Your Name", "I Wanna Be Closer", "Love Over and Over Again" & "I Finally Found Somebody New")! This being said, after "Rhythm of the Night, I just lost interest in DeBarge & El.

I was very aware of El's collaborations with artist like Quincy Jones, Barry White just to name a few. I even loved the great duets with Chante Moore & Siedah Garrett but I didn't realize these were El's songs. Well, the TV One special "Unsung" renewed my interest in DeBarge & Switch so while researching Bobby DeBarge's final solo project produced before his August 1995 death, I came across El's solo projects most of which I had no clue even existed. I clearly remembered "Real Love" from the Gemini cd (a tight track with a slammin video & even now the video is still tight). After viewing a few El DeBarge videos on youtube, I decided to treat myself to an El DeBarge music fest for Christmas and have been on a DeBarge/El DeBarge/Switch terror ever since (lol).

I purchased "Heart, Mind & Soul", "In The Storm", "Gemini" and El's "Ultimate Collection" and was simply blown away! I would have purchased his first solo project self titled "El DeBarge but it sells for roughly $90 & I'm not yet ready to spend that much. Anyway, I didn't know this brotha' had so much talent; all of which was developed at the DeBarge home & their Uncle's church. His vocal talents are a given but his lyrical abilities, wide range musicianship and even his dance moves are fabulous.

Every song from track 1 through 11, "Heart, Mind & Soul" is THE COLDEST cd! There's not one half-good cut; they're all excellent. My most favorites are 6, 7, 8, 10 & 11. Number 11 is a gospel track which El, James, Mark & Mama DeBarge performed live in 1997 at Bishop Noel Jones' church showcasing their musical origin-gospel (check it out @ www.debargenetwork.com), 10 has a melody mix of Marvin Gaye/Isley Brothers which I could listen to all day, 7 & 8 are Baby Face produced (as is 2-3 others) so of course, these are baaad & 6 is a bumpin' dance tune produced by Jermaine Dupree. El wrote most of the lyrics & played several instruments throughout the entire cd. James, Randy & Bunny have guest appearances as so does Stevie Wonder. All of the aforementioned cds are great but "Heart. Mind & Soul" should have been an award winner.

If you don't own this, you NEED to!!

What can I say...I recommend this album. This album has some of the best songs ever written. This man is absolutely talented. "Got to be Real" is perfect. El DeBarge outdid himself!

Words can't describe the wonderful music on this CD. El really has taken his artistry to a new level. FANTASTIC music.

SS

One might think that with the musical and vocal transition from smoother to rougher styles that occured with R&B in the late 80's to mid 90's that someone like El DeBarge would find any kind of easy go of it careerwise. But after the breakup of DeBarge, El found himself releasing solo recordings on high quality from the late 80's up to this point. Although personel problems with substance abuse would derail his momentum in the years to come El was at this point finding his voice maturing from a a breathy high tenor into a rangy instrument that, while it maintained that smoothness had a quality more reminiscent to that found in a Donny Hathaway or a Marvin Gaye of earlier decade. And this album was just in time for the advent of a then new R&B sub genre:neo soul.

Writing and co-writing many of the songs himself,playing keyboards and employing a set of guest musicians and producers that ranged from talents such as Stevie Wonder,Babyface,Jermaine Dupri,Ernie Watts,Jeff Lorber and Wah Wah Watson there's enough of an old and new style of musicianship here to keep even the most hip-hop phobic music fan happy. Needless to say a handful of the songs on the album don't shy away from the contemporary hip-hop/R&B style of the day with the lead off tune "Where Are You",featuring Wonder on harmonica a good example. But what's amazing is how musically and rhythmically diverse this album is especially for the era. The slower numbers such as "Can't Get Enough","Where is My Love" and the self written "Special Lady" and "You Are My Dream" owe their sensuality to the "light/dark" chord progressions that defined the very nature of neo soul at it's peak and...well El sings the hell out of them for sure! "It's Got To Be Real" and the melodically powerful "Starlight,Moon & Candlelight" bring out a strong contemporary jazz flavor as well-the participation of Lorber on the latter a huge help.

"Slide" gets into this heavy jazz hip-hop flavor expanding out it's funky groove with scratching and muted sound effects along with El's vocals.The closing title track is wonderful even if it could be described as a Marvin Gaye rip off with the slow shuffling percussion and heavy use of blue notes but El DeBarge is very much one of a kind and it caps off this overall wonderful album. The ability of this album to be mellow,dark,pretty and very genuinely funky in parts almost demanded a follow up even if it took a long time to get it. Even though El was witnessing a lot of musical transitions at this point he made it clear he was seeing all of them, from every angle and very clearly with this album and that he could retain a good deal of his original musical flavors and talents without resorting to either one extreme as existed at the time of this release.

El Debarge is simply one of R & B's hidden jewels. His CD Second Chance personifies that sentiment a hundred times over, Heart, Mind and Soul is no different!
I listen to this CD EVERYDAY, like its 1993 all over again! His harmonies, arrangements, voice.. simply beautiful! This CD is a must have for any R&B music lover! Go EL.. get well soon, I'm still 'wit cha'
TeamEl_Detroit!

I love Heart, Mind, and Soul from start to finish. This a great album with lots of melody, love, thoughtful lyrics, and soulful singing. El in the 1990s is just as gifted as he was in the '80s and today's "Second Chance." Don't miss this part of his musical journey. I highly recommend this album, and all of his albums because you will be overwhelmingly pleased.

This is my favorite CD by El. It's a very good cd from start to finish.