Club Nouveau

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Club Nouveau

Vocal group

Infectious beats and singing that veered from soulful rhythm-and-blues to straight-out hip-hop were the wide-ranging specialty of the late 1980s vocal group Club Noveau. The group was put together in 1986 in Sacramento, California., and featured singers Jay King, Denzil Foster, Thomas McElroy, Samuelle Pratter, and Valerie Wilson. They issued four hits in 1987 and 1988, including two that reached number two on the rhythm-and-blues charts, but failed to dent the pop charts after McElroy, Pratter, and Foster departed the lineup to be replaced by David Agent and Kevin Irving. The new lineup failed to dent the charts or garner much public attention, and the group disbanded after two albums. While essentially a footnote to 1980s music, the group's hits "Jealousy," "Situation #9," and "Why You Treat Me So Bad" were dance floor favorites, featuring the tight harmonies of the male quartet, the brilliantly dexterous vocals of Wilson, and impressive solo singing with occasional rapping from the individual male members of the group. "Why You Treat Me So Bad" and a soulful cover of the Bill Withers's early 1970s song "Lean on Me" both rocketed to hit status, and the former has been sampled by many subsequent artists, including R. Kelly and Puff Daddy. "Lean on Me" introduced a whole new generation to the Withers classic, and record buyers rushed to their local record emporium to purchase the album.

The original members of Club Nouveau all grew up in northern California. Jay King was from Oroville and was the son of a city worker and a registered nurse. He ran away from home when he was 14 and quit school before completing his junior year. "Kids used to laugh at me in high school, and I was voted ‘Most Unlikely to Succeed,’" he told writer Steve Dougherty in a People magazine interview. "After I dropped out, I lived on the streets or in shelters or just stayed with friends. I panhandled to get money for food." King then joined the Air Force and was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. He was discharged in 1982 after a physical altercation with an officer. King stayed in Alaska and worked for a while as political consultant and legislative page. Before leaving Alaska, King also worked as a concert promoter and put together a dance troupe called Close Encounters of the Funkiest Kind, featuring King doing the 1980s dance craze The Robot. King returned to California in 1985, where he came into contact with the Timex Social Club. The burgeoning impresario saw the group's potential and became their de facto manager. "I sold my furniture and car to finance the recording and pressing," he recalled to Dougherty. The recording and pressing he referred to was the song "Rumors," which sold more than one million copies and entered the top ten.

The Timex Social Club were unable to follow up on their initial success, and King subsequently formed King Jay records to spotlight a new group that would feature former Timex Social Club singer Valerie Watson. "It was clear to me that the success of Timex was due mainly to Jay," she told Dougherty. "I don't think they saw all the promo work he did to make it happen. They were dumb." The group's debut, Life, Love, & Pain (1986) was released by Warner Bros. and featured "Lean on Me." The album sold more than one million copies, while the single of the Withers classic would sell six million. The album was produced by Club Nouveau members McElroy and Foster. "Jay has as long a line of BS as anybody I've ever known," Benny Medina told Dougherty. Medina was the Warner Bros. executive who signed Club Nouveau and helped King set up the King Jay imprint on the label. "Thanks to us there is a new thing, a new vibe," King told Dougherty at the time. "Most acts, especially black acts that established themselves in the '60s and '70s, are ready to get their asses kicked out. It is a new day. … Prince is the Prince, but I am the King."

King took his group into the studio to record "Jealousy," a song that sounded suspiciously like "Rumors." He took the recording to an estimated twelve record companies. "I thought I was somebody," he told Dougherty. "They said I wasn't. They thought I was too young, too black, and they didn't like they way I talked. … They said there was no way what I was doing would ever happen. Well, I proved them wrong, didn't I?" Medina signed the act, and the success of Club Nouveau's debut release proved his instincts correct. As the group began to chart singles, other artists came knocking, seeking the production and songwriting talents of McElroy and Foster. These included Madonna, En Vogue, and LaToya Jackson. The Material Girl also employed Club Nouveau as an opening act for her 1987 tour.

Club Nouveau's debut album proved to be lightning in a bottle, as they were unable to capitalize on their initial success. Foster and McElroy left the fold to focus on their careers as record producers, experiencing tremendous success with En Vogue and Tony Toni Tone. King replaced the duo with David Agent and Kevin Irving, but the magic of the original Club Nouveau was lost. However, All Music Guide critic Alex Henderson wrote that the 1992 release A New Beginning did "have its moments. The album is slightly better than some skeptics might think, although it's definitely the work of someone who was past his prime."

King folded the Club Nouveau tent in the mid-1990s, but resurrected it again for the new millennium. In 2004 he joined Music World Music as director of the label's classic rhythm-and-blues division. Among the groups represented on the label are Club Nouveau and Midnight Star. "When you put the ‘old school’ moniker on these artists, it makes them sound like they're not relevant," King told Billboard magazine writer Gail Mitchell. "We're still making great music and in great voice. We may not sell 1 million anymore, but there's a lot of money out here for us in our twilight years." Foster and McElroy, meanwhile, formed FMob as a side project from an En Vogue production assignment. From there, they went on to produce the Backstreet Boys and form Y? Entertainment Inc., a company with music, publishing, multimedia, film, and manufacturing and distribution divisions.

For the Record …

Members include: David Agent , Denzil Foster , Kevin Irving , Jay King , Thomas McElroy , Samuelle Pratter , Valerie Watson .

Formed in Sacramento, CA, 1986; had two number two hits on rhythm-and-blues charts, 1987-88; McElroy, Pratter, and Foster left lineup, 1988; group disbanded in mid-1990s.