Customer Reviews

Lite Me Up

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

 

 

Two killer cuts on this 1982 release more than compensate for the weaker tracks. "Getting To The Good Part" is a true gem, the usage of horns and the instantly recognizable background vocals of Patti Austin gives it class. The bridge is superbly crafted too, making it the most memorable track.

The final track "Give It All Your Heart" featuring Patrice Rushen has an insistent hook that will gnaw at you for days and features some fine Hancock solo work.

Worth the money for these two tracks alone - the rest of the tracks are worthy pop/soul/disco numbers with "The Bomb" & "Motor Mouth" being the best of the bunch.

Nice R&B album from Hancock and Rod Temperton. Looks like Herbie was inspired from his sessions with Quincy Jones working on The Dude album. This is not a Jazz album although Herbie does some nice solo work on Give It All Your Heart. This album contains the stunning tune Getting To The Good Part, one of the best tunes of 1982. Lots of great stuff on this album, Patrice Rushen contributes lead vocals on Give It All Your Heart, Patti Austin does background vocals, Louis Johnson kills it on bass. Randy Jackson (American Idol judge) who is also an incredible bassist plays bass on Can't Hide Your Love. A great writing collaberation from Herbie and Rod. One of my favorite Herbie recordings

I remember noting, while reviewing Bob James's 1981 album Sign of the Times some time ago, how so many people scrambled to jump on the Rod Temperton bandwagon following the success of Quincy Jones-produced albums like Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, George Benson's Give Me the Night and The Brothers Johnson's Light Up the Night. Temperton, formerly of the UK pop/r&b/soul group Heatwave, was responsible for among many others, the title tunes of all three albums. (George & Louis Johnson did co-write the third one though).

Anyway, this album marked Herbie Hancock's turn on that bandwagon and - primarily due to Temperton's incredible songwriting skills, I would argue - the album actually worked really well. I thought it was huge fun when it came out and still do, 26 years later. The humour in Temperton's lyrics worked well with Hancock's almost playful use of various keyboards here and his tongue in cheek vocal delivery - yes, Herbie even got to sing.

There was a lot of criticism towards Hancock at the time - reflected in some of the reviews below - but at the end of the day, this was a pop/r&b album, not a jazz one and I don't believe Hancock ever intended it to be received as anything else. The only hint of Hancock's jazz pedigree on this album are to be found in "Gettin' To The Good Part", an incredibly exciting study of instrument and vocal arrangement, especially on the bridge, with a manic synth solo by Michael Boddicker, and again on "Give It All Your Heart", Hancock's duet with Patrice Rushen (albeit through vocoders) at the end of which Hancock gives us a stunning electric piano solo that I personally wish could have gone on forever.

Hancock is, has always been and hopefully will always be an experimenter first and a jazz musician second and the expectation that he should restrict himself to 'pure jazz' simply because that's where he started out from is a ridiculously narrow-minded one, in my view. If he felt like making a pop/r&b album, why on earth shouldn't he?

Hancock produced all the tunes himself, except for the piano-driven "Paradise", which was produced by Jay Graydon (he produced Breakin' Away, one of my favourite Al Jarreau albums ever) and the funky "Can't Hide Your Love", which was produced by Narada Michael Walden. Temperton wrote (or co-wrote with Hancock) six of the eight tunes here, except for "Paradise", which was written by Hancock, Graydon, David Foster and Bill Champlin and "Can't Hide Your Love", which was written by Hancock, Walden and Jeffrey Cohen.

Especially noteworthy is the backing vocals work on a couple of the Temperton tunes by Patti Austin (no one handles a Temperton tune like she does!) and the horn arrangements by Jerry Hey. "Motor Mouth" was the dancefloor hit of the day on the college party circuit, though I'm not sure what any of the songs here did on the charts, if anything. Hancock had worked on all three of the albums I mentioned at the top and he had clearly been watching producer Quincy Jones very closely. It shows.

This is a fun album by one of the most influential musicians of our time. My vinyl copy was worn and scratched (but still sold) and I paid through the nose for this CD on Japanese import but I'm just happy to be able to keep it in my collection. I love it!

"Lite Me Up" is a collaberative project between Hancock and
Rod Temperton of Heatwave.Overall the album sounds like Heatwave's recent work (check out Herbie's playing on that bands
'Current' CD of the same vintage)and that is most notable on
"The Bomb","You Can't Hide Your Love" and "Motor Mout".Some of the other cuts are a bit poppy but there are a few clues that
Herbie is about to unleash "Rockit" the following year."Lite Me
Up" serves as a worthy goodbye to this tenative stage in Herbie's career and the end of his 70's funk sound.A follow up
to "Magic Windows" rather then a precusur to "Future Shock".

This Cd is a good example of what Herbie Hancock did in the 80s - trying to fuse Pop with some Jazz, R&B and Funk. It's a cool recording, catchy tunes and some good solos by Herbie.
And that's what this Cd should be all about, I think!
No Jazz here! But Herbie was and is more than Jazz!
Respect for trying and doing this, Herbie!

As with most musical geniuses, they are often misunderstood by fellow musicians,and a society that can only began to comprehend their talents by a need to classify or stereo-tpye their music. This work defys classification. This is remenisant of the project:Qwest, headed by Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton of Heatwave, Who recruit artist of the highest calibre, who are not afraid to sail beyond the safe boundries established by the music industy. i,e George Benson's "Give me the Night", Micheal Jackson's "Off the Wall" and The Brothers Johnson's Light up the Night", to name a few. No, you won't find traditional Herbie Hancock here. This is music for the mind, and body. My favorite tracks are, motor mouth, fun tracks, give it all your heart, and can't hide love. Now, if I can just get my hands on a copy!!

Being a huge Rod Temperton fan I know a little about this album. I have read several reviews that Temperton was a hot producer and this influenced Hancock's sound on this album. Yes, Hancock went away from his eariler jazz sound but Rod Temperton was "not" the producer (Hancock produced all of them except one by Michael Walden and one by Jay Graydon. Temperton did very little producing and only later on in the late 80's (sweet freedom, Mica Paris album, Klymaxx) did Temperton produce. I am not sure where this Rod Temperton being a producer came from. I read it often. Temperton was and is a songwriter first (Off the wall, Rock with you, Thriller, Give me the night, Baby come to me, Always and Forever, Boggie Nights, etc..) Temperton wrote six of the songs on this album. Narada Michael Walden (Whitney Houston producer)wrote one with David Foster and Jay Graydon (Al Jareau producer )the other. Temperton also arranged most of the rhythm and vocals on this album. He is also a master at this and it comes through loud an clear again on this great album. There are many impressive guests on the album from Patti Austin, Brothers Johnson, David Foster, Jay Graydon, Michael Walden to name a few. This album is somewhat like a Quincy Jones and Heatwave sound put togehter. This is a great album that was overlooked because Hancock somewhat left his "roots" and upset some. The high price should tell you that this is a great album if you can get it. Just wanted to set the "record" straight.

loved it some of his best work ever!

The title of this album is right on target--was Herbie trying to tell us something? Producer Rod Templeton scored some memorable hits for the likes of Michael Jackson, but here there's little in the way of memorable tunes, the production is by-the-numbers even by the slack early-80's pop standards, and Hancock is little more than the stock keyboard player on a mismatched gig. I support Herbie's right to record anything he wants, including this disc. However, I don't think at this point in time that it will have much appeal to anybody, no matter what genre of popular music you prefer.

Recorded in 1982 this album offers very little in the way of jazz such as you might find on other Herbie Hancock albums.In the main this is because this is a vehicle for the undoubted production skills of Rod Temperton, who at the time was "hot" as a producer.There are no less than four vocalists on the album, Temperton, Patrice Rushen, Wayne Anthony, and last, and often placed very far down in the mix and with a vocoder, Herbie Hancock himself.The same problems with mix can be cited for his keyboard work as well.It's notable that Temperton is credited as responsible for "vocal and rhythm arrangements". There are some good tunes on the album notably "The bomb" and "Give it all your heart" (which at 7.39 is the longest track).It has to be said that this an album for Hancock completists only