Have you ever been in love? Struggled within your relationship? Felt lonely because you were missing your love? Wondering if the love will last? Or felt unconditional love so deep that you could not imagine your live without your love? These are questions that stem from the lyricism of Detroit’s songstress, Anita Baker, one of my favorite artists of all time. Not because of the ten albums she contributed to the musical landscape of America but because she has a soulful voice and it has brought me joy for years.
Anita Baker began singing at the tender age of twelve years old and haven’t stopped since then. I was addicted to the soulful songs she sang with her first album Rapture, which contained two of my favorite tunes, Angel and Sweet Love. However it was the 1990 musical hit, “Compositions” which in my opinion has to be the absolute best Anita Baker album of all time because I loved each romantic and relationship-based tune. In other words I could let this album play without taking off the album. Baker’s voice of reason embraces the listener and allows them to reflect upon their own life lessons of love and traveling the up and down roads of relationships. She has a very simple and beautiful singing voice that empowers the listeners to reflect on their relationships. Her smooth and beautiful voice paints pictures of life that any one can relate to. Whether it’s a wife who misses her husband, or a jilted lover, or a couple going through life changes, any one can relate to the nuggets of life nestled in between the stanzas.
My personal experience with her music started when I began singing songs from Rapture in high school. At the time I was a Sophomore at Chicago’s Kenwood Academy, and a choir member of the Kenwood Academy Mixed Chorus. I heard her song, Angel, on the radio and began to sing it and used the song as an audition song for the high school’s talent show. Although I did not make the show. The song stay embedded in my head for years and one I can sing at the drop of a hat.
Why did this particular song speak to me? I loved the simple tones and her Alto-Soprano vocality spoke to my heart. Even though I could not do justice to the song at the time, it was and will be my all time favorite Anita Baker tune. Sweet Love is a song that got me through heart break as I experienced in the early 1990’s and a song that I sang at the Taste of Chicago in front of a live audience. Singing the song was as healing as it was my first live performance outside of high school. I remember the feeling that rushed through me as I performed it.
As I listen to female vocalists these days, I don’t hear a lot of beautiful songstresses singing romantic songs that are very simplicist like Anita Baker’s praise of the institute of unconditional love.
Most of Anita’s songs are played on light jazz and contemporary adult stations. I long for the day where she will release a new album, because her songs of love, redemption and maintaining positive relationships between men and women, are definitely missing. The joy in which her voice and the stories that are painted brings us listeners close to the edge of life by examining our own life stories of love, pain and joy. The redemption that comes from those life lessons are what her songs brings to us…that even though sometimes relationships can be sweet, they can also be challenging. But relationships can survive, thrive, and be maintained by open communications.
Her Top Tunes:
1.Angel
2.Sweet Love
3.You Bring Me Joy
4.Caught Up In the Rapture
5.Same Old Love
6.Ain’t No Need to Worry (featuring Be Be Winans)
7.I Apologize
8.Just Because
9.Fairy Tales
10.Giving You The Best That I Got
If you ever get a chance surf the web and you will find many fan pages dedicated to her awesome singing voice that has touched many people nationally. As you remember the love that’s in your life or need a reminder of how to romance your loved one, listen to one of her songs as a reminder. The deep devotion and joy that is embedded within her lyricism will bring back that loving feeling.
