{"id":1393,"date":"2024-10-18T01:07:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T01:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2024-10-18T01:08:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T01:08:59","slug":"1393-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: How Frankie Beverly Built an Untouchable Band for Black America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

Almost twenty years ago, we\u2019re at an amphitheater in Cary, North Carolina, a tony bedroom community south of Durham and west Raleigh. There was nothing but a sea of Black folk, anxiously awaiting Mint Condition and the headliner Maze featuring Frankie Beverly<\/a>. You could count, without losing track, the number of White folks in the audience. The pairing was inspired, a throwback to the days when Black bands like\u00a0Earth, Wind & Fire<\/a>, The\u00a0Isley Brothers, Mandrill, Lakeside, and Parliament-Funkadelic were at their peak. These groups, and so many others, came of age when the music still belonged to the people. Record sales were nice, but nobody measured an act\u2019s value based on whether they went multi-platinum \u2014 few of the aforementioned groups did so. Perhaps the most important legacy of Frankie Beverly, was his commitment to keep Maze on the road for the people, so that folks would know that the Music belonged to them.<\/p>\n

In a room filled with mixed company, mention the group Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, and hundreds of years of racial segregation will reproduce itself right before your eyes. Virtually unknown to White audiences, even in the years after Beyonce\u2019s cover of their signature \u201cBefore I Let Go<\/a>,\u201d Maze featuring Frankie Beverly was the closest thing that Black America had to the\u00a0Grateful Dead. But whereas \u201cDead Heads\u201d \u2014 the traveling band of fans who followed the group around the country \u2014 were seemingly only looking for music to accompany the purple haze, most of Frankie Beverly\u2019s fans were simply looking for good times and community. The band may not have been the most accomplished or even the most popular R&B band, but make no mistake, they are Black America\u2019s band.<\/p>\n

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Maze\u2019s roots go back to 1969, when Beverly formed a jazz-rock group called\u00a0Raw Soul. The group had some local success in their hometown of Philadelphia, PA but when their label folded, they left the East Coast in the summer of 1972 for the San Francisco\/Oakland Bay area. After struggling for a few years, the band had a fortunate encounter with\u00a0Marvin Gaye, who asked them to serve as his backing band for a few dates in the area. Gaye took their demo to\u00a0Larkin Arnold\u00a0at Capitol Records (the same Arnold who later orchestrated Gaye\u2019s comeback with \u201cSexual Healing\u201d), who signed the band, renaming them Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. Their self-titled debut was released in 1977. Years later the band would pay tribute to Gaye with the song \u201cSilky Soul Singer\u201d (1989), which remains one of their most popular singles.<\/p>\n

As a youth Beverly was enamored with Frankie Lymon, the lead singer of The Teenagers (\u201cWhy Do Fools Fall in Love?<\/a>\u201d), to the point of taking on the nickname \u201cFrankie\u201d (Howard was his given name). Given his stellar vocals and good looks, Beverly could have easily broken from the group and been a star in his own right. But like the example of Levi Stubbs (The Four Tops) and Joe Ligon (The Mighty Clouds of Joy), Beverly remained committed to Maze (and Raw Silk) for more than 50 years.\u00a0Beverly\u2019s loyalty and longevity extended to the band itself, which never strayed from its roots in groove-laden, upscale party music, perfectly pitched for the block party and the cook-out.<\/p>\n

Commercially, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly was a bit of an enigma. The group never charted in the Pop Top 40; \u201cFeel That You\u2019re Feelin\u2019<\/a>\u201d reached #67 in 1979 in the midst of the Disco era. \u201cBack in Stride<\/a>\u201d (1985) and \u201cCan\u2019t Get Over You<\/a>\u201d (1989) were their only tracks to top the R&B charts. As much as we now love \u201cBefore I Let Go\u201d, it didn\u2019t even crack the top ten on the R&B charts.\u00a0That seven of their eight studio albums and their\u00a0Live in New Orleans\u00a0<\/em>(1981) were certified Gold records highlights their consistency and knowledge of their audience: hard-working Black folk for which a concert ticket or an album were luxuries.<\/p>\n

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My first experience with the Maze featuring Frankie Beverly phenomenon was during the Newport Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, NY in the early 1990s. The band was the closing act on that particular night, and I distinctly remember some of the White folk in the crowd (which the festival\u2019s audience in those days was overwhelmingly so) sit restlessly, not quite knowing who the band was or what to expect. As the band broke into that all-too-familiar intro to \u201cJoy and Pain,\u201d my wife and I were among the hundreds or so who took over the seats close to the stage, that were abandoned by those who didn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t hang for the party \u2014 and party we did.<\/p>\n

The best tribute to Maze\u2019s formula is that they had not released new music since 1993\u2019s\u00a0Back to Basics<\/em>, and had been without a recording label for thirty years. As Duke Ellington understood generations ago, the music didn\u2019t matter, and didn\u2019t mean anything, if the people who needed it most, didn\u2019t get to be with it \u2014 and a record player was no substitute. Ellington was often on the road with his band 300 days out of the year, to not only sustain the music, but to remind us as he so often did, that he \u201cloved us madly\u201d; Frankie Beverly shared that ethic.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Beverly\u2019s death leaves a void that will not be easily replaced, Maze\u2019s multi-generational appeal marked their music as unique; few if any contemporary R&B artists can speak to the grandparents as easily as they speak to the grandchildren. And while Frankie Beverly will never ever again ascend to the stage, he has left us a vault of music that reminds us that \u201cwe are one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost twenty years ago, we\u2019re at an amphitheater in Cary, North Carolina, a tony bedroom community south of Durham and west Raleigh. There was nothing but a sea of Black folk, anxiously awaiting Mint Condition and the headliner Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. You could count, without losing track, the number of White folks in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false],"jnews-360x180":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-360x180.jpg",360,180,true],"jnews-750x375":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-750x375.jpg",750,375,true],"jnews-1140x570":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-1000x570.jpg",1000,570,true],"jnews-120x86":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-120x86.jpg",120,86,true],"jnews-350x250":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-350x250.jpg",350,250,true],"jnews-750x536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-750x536.jpg",750,536,true],"jnews-1140x815":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false],"jnews-360x504":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-360x504.jpg",360,504,true],"jnews-75x75":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-75x75.jpg",75,75,true],"jnews-350x350":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-350x350.jpg",350,350,true],"jnews-featured-750":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1-750x500.jpg",750,500,true],"jnews-featured-1140":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg",1000,667,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Newssoccer","author_link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Blog<\/a>","tag_info":"Blog","comment_count":"0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frankie-Beverly-1-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1395,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions\/1395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}