Life & Love [Import]

Philip Bailey | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 11, 1995)
• Original Release Date: 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Eagle Music Europe
• ASIN: B0000089QO
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,030 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #75 in Music > Indie Music > R&B > Soul

Track Listings

1. How Can I Rely on You*

2. Talking to Myself

3. All Night Waiting

4. Down

5. Tonight

6. Shower Me with Your Love

7. Caution to the Wind

8. Someway, Somehow

9. Weightless

10. Life and Love

11. Feining for Your Love

12. How Can I Rely on You [Love to Infinity's Soulmaster Radio Mix][*]

13. Steppin' Through Time

14. Bailés' Song

15. Anything Is Possible

Editorial Reviews

European edition of the former Earth Wind & Fire vocalist's 1998 solo album with 'How Can I Rely On You' (Love To Infinity's Soulmaster Radio Mix) added as a bonus track, fora total of 15 cuts. An Eagle Records release.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Bailey Ponders The Messages Between The Elements, September 22, 2011

By 

Andre S. Grindle "Andre' Grindle" (Brewer Maine) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life & Love (Audio CD)

During the last few years of the 90's the tail end of the funk revival was making it possible for even newer musical acts to create memorable music with a message they wholeheartedly meant. The faux angst explosion of the early to middle part of the decade had ceased. And all around there was a new hope in the air. Much as with the whole "daisy age" hip-hop/acid jazz concept at the end of the 80's. Signing up with Eagle Records after the valiant but somewhat short sighted 1994 album Philip Bailey,featuring production from the talented Chuckii Booker in an attempt to get him "in" with the contempo R&B crowd this album was produced by another talented man who probably understand Bailey just a little better. Spending the 80's and 90's with a parallel pop and gospel music career,this bought him full circle back to where it all started for him. Producer Jean Paul "Bluey" Maunick of Incognito,a British jazz-funk group heavily inspired by EWF's heavily arranged groove was probably the ideal person to produce Bailey at this point. Especially when that full circle represented the idea of soulful,funky music with an all encompassing message was back in his grasp.

The album begins with the wonderous,high stepping groove of "How Can I Rely On You". It is very unapologetically 70's in flavor for sure. And that's not a bad thing because Bluey had more than enough practice with his original band on how to produce such a groove correctly. He comes on exactly the same way with "Talking To Myself","Caution To The Wind" and "Steppin Through Time". Bailey,still very much the funk oracle in terms of putting the face of humanity to a deeply spiritual level of emotions of "love and life" in fact,infuses these songs with as much power and soul as he can bring to them. "Anything Is Possible","Tonight","Someway,Somehow" and "Feining For Your Love" embrace the same conceptual flavor using R.Kelly style grooving mid tempo ballads. The title song and the majestic closer "Shower Me With Your Love" showcase the type of gospel inspired musical melodrama Bailey always got down to a tee in his EWF days. There are a few unique songs in the mix as well. "Weightless" takes a metaphoric lyric with something of an "alternative soul/folk" flavor to it-somewhere in the vein of where Arrested Development took the idea minus the hip-hop angle. On "All Night Waiting" he's wading deep in a modern day funky blues angle-and very close to the funk angle of it considering the two music's obvious connections. On "Bailes Song" he's multi tracking himself acapella for a few minutes in classic modern gospel style.

Overall this is probably Philip Bailey's strongest albums of the 1990's. It contains everything that made Bailey special and remains contemporary without resorting to being ultra trendy. Also to sweeten the deal is the fact that he was still intent on keeping the message in his music fully intact. What I never fail to be amazed by in throughout the 1990's is how those pressed to be critical of music seemed so intent on it's place in the culture rather than it's own integrity. Even groups like The Spice Girls,who while very popular had a sound very rooted in the 70's,were all too easily given a lot of critical flack for their "dubious orgins" or even their popularity itself. Being obviously "pop" just plain wasn't cool during this time. Bailey didn't have to worry about that too much. Because even going as far back as his 1983 solo debut Continuation he maintained every bit of creative integrity in his music he could muster. If he had a smash hit along the way,that was fine. But music itself was the premium focus. And even here one can hear he never lost sight of that.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Voice!, April 5, 2008

By 

TTWOTW Jess - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life & Love (Audio CD)

Philip Bailey has The Voice! Philip has one of the most beautiful voices ever heard and there is a spirituality about him that transcends everything he does. He has been given a gift and he has been sharing it with the world for nearly 40 years. Amazing voice and even more amazing person.