Jam, Jimmy and Lewis, Terry
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Producers, songwriters, record company executives
Made Flyte Tyme in Minneapolis
When Elle music writer Steven Daly said that Janet Jackson’s 1986 album Control “changed the face of pop radio,” he was perhaps saying less about Jackson than about the production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Daly explained, “Their unholy alliance with the youngest daughter of a dysfunctional showbiz family would turn the beat around, setting black music back on its proper course to chart domination.” In ten years, Jam and Lewis, now based at their Flyte Tyme Productions in Minneapolis, have written and/or produced over 40 singles and albums that have sold in excess of 500,000 to one million units, as well as an expanse of top hits on the R & B, dance, and pop music charts. Rolling Stone’s Michael Goldberg aptly described them as “auteur producers whose body of work has a musical and thematic unity that transcends the work of the individual artists they produce.”
Jam and Lewis both grew up in Minneapolis, though Lewis was not born there. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 24, 1956, Lewis moved to the city with his family in the early 1960s. Jam, born James Harris III, on June 6, 1959, met Lewis while the two were high school students. They did not meet in class, however, but while attending an Upward Bound program for urban youth on the University of Minnesota campus. According to their Flyte Tyme publicity literature, the precise locus of the meeting was “over a piano.” The initial encounter, nonetheless, did not blossom into a career option until some years later; in the meantime, Lewis was pursuing a high school athletic career that won him a football scholarship to Notre Dame University, and Jam was earning his nickname spinning records for dancers at Minneapolis clubs.
Made Flyte Tyme in Minneapolis
Lewis was forced to forgo college when a knee injury cut short his athletic potential during his senior year of high school, which compelled him to seriously consider a career in music. Lewis had formed and played bass in a band called Flyte Tyme that, in the mid-1970s, shared the funk spotlight with another homegrown Minneapolis superstar, Prince. The Lewis-Jam musical connection blossomed in the late 1970s when Lewis invited his friend to play keyboards for his band; they would begin regularly writing songs together early in 1981. Around this time, Prince began exercising his entrepreneurial reach by essentially buying Flyte Tyme and replacing vocalist Alexander O’Neal with his friend and protege Morris Day. Firmly in control, Prince dubbed the band The Time and began shaping them into a professional outfit.
For the Record…
Team consists of Jimmy Jam (born June 6, 1959, in Minneapolis, MN) and Terry Lewis (born James Harris III, November 24, 1956, in Omaha, NE; married Karyn White [a singer]).
Duo met while high school students, Minneapolis, mid-1970s; Lewis formed, and played bass for, funk band Flyte Tyme, mid-1970s, and recruited Jam, on keyboards, late 1970s; formalized songwriting partnership, 1981; members of band The Time, 1981-83; formed production company Flyte Tyme Productions, 1982; wrote and produced tracks for other bands, including Klymaxx and the S.O.S. Band, 1983-86; produced Janet Jackson’s debut album, Control, and albums for the Human League, the Force M.D.’s, and Robert Palmer, 1986; in joint venture with A&M Records, formed Perspective Records, 1991, and produced Sounds of Blackness debut album, The Evolution of Gospel; through Perspective, began management of promotion and marketing of A&M R & B roster, 1993.
Awards: American Music Award for best R & B single, 1986, for Janet Jackson’s “Nasty”; Grammy Award for producers of the year, 1986; American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Writers of the Year awards and R & B Writers of the Year awards, 1987-93; ASCAP Golden Note Award, 1993; NAACP Heritage Award for Lifetime Achievement; Minnesota Dr. Martin Luther King Day Humanitarian Award; numerous gold and platinum singles and albums.
Addresses: Production company —Flyte Tyme Productions, 4100 West 76th St., Edina, MN 55435.
Although Jam and Lewis, the primary songwriters for the band at that time, were dissatisfied with their lack of independence under Prince’s stewardship, they realized the benefits of the arrangement. Goldberg allowed that “they became professionals while playing in the Time,” and he quoted Jam as having recalled, “Prince was going to call the shots. We weren’t going to get paid a lot of money, but we were going to learn. We were not going to make a bunch of mistakes Prince had made.” Jam further mused that, in the long run, “You came away from that experience definitely having the work ethic. You believe in yourself.”
Jam and Lewis vented their creative frustrations by writing songs for other musicians and occasionally producing the tracks. By the time they incorporated their musical and production skills in 1982 with the creation of Flyte Tyme Productions, they had begun traveling to various cities around the country, renting time in recording studios. It was just such a travel engagement that ended their relationship with Prince. Between Time gigs in 1983, Jam and Lewis flew to Atlanta to produce “Just Be Good to Me,” a song they had written for the S.O.S. Band. A freak blizzard in Georgia forced them to miss a Time concert in San Antonio, Texas. Prince, widely known for his no-nonsense managerial style, told them to either devote their energy to the band or leave; they left.
Conquered Market With Control
Over the next few years, Jam and Lewis developed their talents and built their business as both songwriters and producers. Following their break from The Time in 1983—and the timely success of “Just Be Good to Me” for the S.O.S. Band—Jam and Lewis turned out a string of triumphs, including a hit with Cherrelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On.” Jam told Rolling Stone’s Goldberg how Prince’s ultimatum had changed their lives, revealing, “That was the first time that we got serious about producing.... Up to that time it was just fun. ‘Hey, let’s write some songs. Ha-ha, this is fun.’ All of a sudden, it’s like... ‘this is how I’m going to make my living now.’” By 1984, they had bought their own studio, also named Flyte Tyme Productions, and had set up full-time operations in Minneapolis.
1986 proved to be the turning point for Flyte Tyme, largely, but not entirely, due to the success of Janet Jackson’s debut album, Control. Their work with Jackson exemplified the team’s production ethic, demonstrating how they manage to realize the potential of musicians whose careers are at a crossroads. Jackson lived in the shadow of her superstar brother, Michael, and had received little attention despite years of work in television and music. Jam and Lewis approached the singer with a concept, designing songs specifically for her image and crafting an album to fill an apparent void in the music scene of the moment.
Jam disclosed to Elle’s Daly, “With Control we tried to make a very street-edged R & B record with a lot of attitude.... We just set out to make as black an album as we could.” Goldberg noted that after Jam and Lewis brought Jackson to Minneapolis to record, they “were doing their kind of research, gathering the raw material from which they would fashion a batch of semibiographical hit songs... that revealed a shockingly emancipated Janet Jackson and subsequently transformed her into the major new superstar of 1986.” Of their approach to the songwriting, Jam said, “All we ever try to do is bring out the personality. Janet was like a stick of dynamite. We lit the fuse.” The ensuing explosion produced a multiplatinum album and five Top Ten pop hits, among them the memorable “Control,” “Nasty,” “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” and “When I Think of You.”
Broadened Reach
From the landmark of Control, Jam and Lewis have focused on expanding their production facilities. Their potential grew markedly as their influence shifted from a black music market to the pop arena, which allowed them to introduce more and more black musicians to greater success and marketability. The Top Ten status of a 1986 single, “Tender Love,” with the Force M.D.’s had marked Flyte Tyme’s initial transition from the R & B charts to the pop charts, closely anticipating the tremendous crossover success of Control. 1986 also saw the production of Top Ten hits with “Human,” by the Human League, and a cover version of Cherrelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” by Robert Palmer. The resounding coup of 1986 demanded industry attention for Jam and Lewis, including the 1986 Grammy for producers of the year. By 1989 the duo were able to reflect their change in status with a change in venue, trading the original Minneapolis studio for a multimillion-dollar, cutting-edge complex outside of the city.
Post-Jackson, Jam and Lewis found themselves free to pick and choose the artists with whom they would work; they received calls from the likes of megastars Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. But they continued, despite their movement into a mainstream market that allowed them freedom from the limits imposed on “black” producers in a segregated industry, to champion African-American musicians who weren’t quite realizing their musical and business potential. Lewis told Daly, “We’ve been offered people who’ve sold millions of records... but if we don’t feel we can bring something to the party, then we don’t take it.... It’s not that we don’t love these people and their work—that’s exactly why we won’t touch it.”
Jam and Lewis brought precisely this philosophy to the record label, Perspective Records, that they created in a joint venture with A&M Records in 1991. Their first recording was an indisputable success, not simply because of positive reviews and sales, but also because Jam and Lewis—characteristically—were able to create mainstream popularity for an unlikely client: a 40-member gospel choir called Sounds of Blackness. Their debut album, The Evolution of Gospel, garnered the Grammy for best gospel album by a choir or chorus and landed three singles on the R & B charts. Perspective’s second release, Mint Condition’s Meant to Be Mint, put this young band in the Number One R & B spot with the single “Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes).” Perspective continued to market new bands, including Lo-Key?, and turned the soundtrack for the Daman Wayans film Mo’ Money into a platinum record. In 1993 A&M extended its deal with Perspective through a significant infusion of cash and manpower, and it was announced that Perspective would be charged with promotion and marketing of A&M’s R & B roster—quite the vote of confidence for Jam and Lewis.
Over the years the dynamic duo—almost as well known for their signature dark suits, fedoras, and shades as for their remarkable skills—have maintained their partnership with Jackson, possibly the one superstar in their roster. Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 built on the success of Control, making its mark in 1989 with five Number One assaults on the R & B chart and six Top Five landings on the pop chart. Ms. Jackson’s 1993 offering, janet., debuted at Number One on the pop charts and remained there for six weeks; by this time, the lead single from the album, the gently grooving “That’s the Way Love Goes,” had been prominent on both the pop and R & B charts for almost a month. The record, in fact, seemed unstoppable, spawning two more hits, “If” and “Again,” as Jackson’s world tour headed off into 1994. Similarly, the momentum of Jam and Lewis’s Flyte Tyme showed no signs of letting up.
Selected discography
As producers
The Time, The Time, Warner Bros., 1981.
The Time, What Time Is It?, Warner Bros., 1982.
Klymaxx, Girls Will Be Girls, Solar, 1982.
The S.O.S. Band, On the Rise (includes “Just Be Good to Me”), Tabu/Epic, 1983.
Klymaxx, Meeting in the Ladies’ Room, Constellation/MCA, 1984.
The S.O.S. Band, Just the Way You Like It, Tabu/Epic, 1984.
Change, Change of Heart, RFC/Atlantic, 1984.
Thelma Houston, Qualifying Heat, MCA, 1984.
Cherrelle, Fragile (includes “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On”), Tabu/Epic, 1984.
Cherrelle, High Priority, Tabu/Epic, 1985.
Alexander O’Neal, Alexander O’Neal, Tabu/Epic, 1985.
Force M.D.’s, “Tender Love” (12• single), Warner Bros., 1985.
The Human League, Crash (includes “Human”), A&M, 1986.
Robert Palmer, Riptide (includes “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On”), Island, 1986.
Janet Jackson, Conirol (includes “Nasty,” “Control,” “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” and “When I Think of You”), A&M, 1986.
The S.O.S. Band, Sands of Time, Tabu/Epic, 1986.
O’Neal, Hearsay, Tabu/Epic, 1987.
Herb Alpert, Keep Your Eyes on Me, A&M, 1987.
Cherrelle, Affair, Tabu/Epic, 1988.
New Edition, Heart Break, MCA, 1988.
O’Neal, All Mixed Up, Tabu/Epic, 1989.
Jackson, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, A&M, 1989.
O’Neal, All True Man, Tabu/Epic, 1991.
Karyn White, Ritual of Love, Warner Bros., 1991.
Sounds of Blackness, The Evolution of Gospel, Perspective/A&M, 1991.
Mint Condition, Meant to Be Mint (includes “Breakin’ My Heart [Pretty Brown Eyes]”), Perspective/A&M, 1991.
Mo’ Money (soundtrack), Perspective/A&M, 1992.
Jackson, janet. (includes “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “If,” and “Again”), Virgin, 1993.
Sources
Billboard, October 23, 1993.
Ebony, July 1987.
Elle, March 1993.
High Fidelity, September 1986.
Jet, May 24, 1993.
Musician, September 1992.
People, June 29, 1992.
Rolling Stone, April 23, 1987.
—Ondine E. Le Blanc
Jam, Jimmy and Lewis, Terry
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Business Smarts, Community Service
Selected discography (as producers)
Producers, musicians
The production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis helped reshape the landscape of black music—and, by extension, of popular music—during the 1980s and 1990s with recordings by artists as diverse as pop diva Janet Jackson, gospel choir the Sounds of Blackness, close-harmony group Boyz II Men, and R&B veterans Gladys Knight, Barry White, and Patti LaBelle. They achieved further success with their record label, Perspective, as well as hit film soundtracks and a song for the 1996 Olympic Games. Despite having earned countless hit records and scores of awards, the pair’s bottom line has always remained the same: their friendship is the basis for their creative partnership, and their love of music overrules all other considerations.
The pair met in high school in Minneapolis. Jam—whose given name was James Harris III—earned his nickname as a local DJ, though he also jammed on keyboards. Lewis, meanwhile, had designs on a career in professional football. He had a pretty good chance, earning a scholarship to Notre Dame University, but an injury prevented him from pursuing his athletic dream. He therefore fell back on music, playing bass in a band called Flyte Tyme, which he had co-founded. The group played the kind of adrenalized funk that was in vogue in Minneapolis at the time, thanks to acts like Lewis’ friend Prince. Jam was invited to join Flyte Tyme, and Prince became the group’s manager. He ran a tight ship, replacing the band’s vocalist, shortening its name to The Time, and demanding total commitment from the musicians. “We weren’t going to get paid a lot of money,” Jam recalled in Rolling Stone, “but we were going to learn.”
Took Control
Jam and Lewis appeared on two albums by The Time, but after formalizing their songwriting partnership in 1981 their interest in other projects grew. Writing and producing for the S.O.S. band, they found themselves trapped in Atlanta by inclement weather; as a result, they missed a Time show in San Antonio. As Jam told Uptown, this brought down the wrath of Prince upon them. “Prince didn’t want to break the group up,” he said, “but the snowstorm provided the excuse he needed to fire us two. He thought we were off seeing some girls.
At a Glance…
Jimmy jam (born James Harris III, June 6, 1959, Minneapolis, MN), married; one child. Terry Lewis (born November 24,1956, Omaha, NE), married Karyn Lewis (a singer), 1991; three children.
Met in Minneapolis, mid-1970s; performing and recording artists for band Flyte Tyme (later The Time), mid-1970s-1983; formalized songwriting partnership, 1981; formed production company Flyte Tyme Productions, 1982; produced and/or composed for other acts, including S.O.S. Band, Kfymaxx, Human League, Robert Palmer, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, Barry White, Gladys Knight, Karyn White, others 1982—; formed Perspective Records in partnership with A&M Records, 1991; produced recordings by Perspective artists Sounds of Blackness, Mint Condition, Lo-Key, Raja-Nee, Ann Nesby, and others, 1991—.
Selected awards: American Music Award for best R&B single, 1986, for Janet Jackson’s “Nasty/Grammy Award for producers of the year, 1986; ASCAP Songwriters of the Year awards and R&B Writers of the Year Awards, 1987-93,1995, ASCAP Golden Note Award, 1993, and Song of the Year award, 1996; N AACP Heritage Award for Lifetime Achievement; T.J. Martell Humanitarian Award, 1996; numerous gold and platinum records.
Addresses: Record company—Perspective Records, A&M, 1416 North LaBrea, Los Angeles, CA 90028. Production company—Flyte Tyme Productions, 4100 West 76th St, Edina, MN 55435.
Then he saw our picture in Billboard or something with the SOS Band, and all that changed. Seems like it was OK to be off seeing girls, but not OK to be furthering your own career.” After finishing their tour obligations with The Time—Prince’s opening act—the pair left the group.
Their earliest songwriting job netted them $1,500 for one tune, reported the Los Angeles Times. Though at first the two regarded such enterprise as a diversion, they soon came to understand that it could be the basis of a lucrative career. More and more work followed, and by 1984 they had reclaimed the name Flyte Tyme--for their production company, which boasted its own studio. The first Jam and Lewis milestone came when they produced Control, the turning-point album by Janet Jackson. Known until that time as a TV actress and Michael Jackson’s sweet-faced kid sister, Janet put herself entirely in the hands of her producers, who shaped her project with the utmost care. The result was a record with enough edge to establish her as a credible R&B artist, but with enough pop smarts to take her into the mainstream. “All we ever try to do is bring out the personality,” Jam told Elle. “Janet was like a stick of dynamite. We lit the fuse.” Control scored a string of crossover hits and multiplatinum sales; it firmly established Jackson in the pop firmament.
The album also made Jam and Lewis into major players on the pop scene, even before they landed a Grammy Award as producers of the year. Though they had generated a buzz for several years, they now began to call the shots in their career; soon they were writing and producing hits for a flock of young artists, including Force M.D.’s, Robert Palmer, Alexander O’Neal, New Edition, and many others. Their work on Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 album consolidated her superstar status.
David Browne of Entertainment Weekly observed that Jam and Lewis helped shape the pop sound of the late 1980s. “With its rigid Robo-drummer beats and homogenized blend of computers and vocal harmonies,” he wrote, the sound of Jackson’s first recordings with the duo “was shocking in its airtight quality.” This highly processed, energetic sound would mellow in time as Jam and Lewis—ever alert to the prevailing commercial winds—moved with the times. “You’ve got to remember,” Lewis reflected in Inc., “without the business there’s no music.” And by the time this article appeared in 1990, the business was well in hand; the magazine remarked admiringly of the pair’s “state-of-the-art” earnings.
Ideal Partnership
Yet money, by most accounts, has had little impact on the pair’s deep friendship and harmonious working relationship. “We share the same value system as [other] human beings—respect one another, respect other people,” Lewis told the Los Angeles Times. “They listen to each other and talk about everything, and they come to conclusions together,” the pair’s assistant Susan Owens added. “They truly love each other.” Lewis, who married singer Karyn Lewis, told the paper that he would have married Jam if his partner were a woman. “It’s not a common relationship,” he added. “It’s not built on greed but built on trust; everything is 50-50.” This point was underscored by their insistence on sharing credit for all their achievements; Jam would not accept a Keyboard magazine award until Lewis’ name was put on the plaque.
Jam and Lewis based their production philosophy not on what artists were hot, but on what could be achieved by a collaboration. “We’ve been offered people who’ve sold millions of records,” Lewis insisted in Elle, but they have refused to work with artists unless they “can bring something to the party.” The year 1991 saw the founding of their label Perspective, in conjunction with A&M Records. The first release on the label invited some skepticism: The Evolution of Gospel by the choir Sounds of Blackness. Yet the album became a smash and won a slew of awards, including a Grammy. Similar success met with the next Perspective release, Mint Condition’s Meant to be Mint. Jam and Lewis achieved another triumph with the soundtrack to the film comedy Mo’ Money. The powerhouse collection—a multiplatinum smash—boasts tracks by Color Me Badd, Caron Wheeler, and Public Enemy and a Janet Jackson-Luther Vandross duet, among others. According to Musician reviewer James Hunter, the soundtrack allowed the pair to “summarize, as per their famous command of mainstream black pop, the current state of the art.”
Successful “Hobby”
Jam and Lewis oversaw Janet Jackson’s image-shifting janet., and were even permitted by her new label, Virgin, to release a Jackson single on Perspective. janet. presented the singer in a far more adult light, emphasizing her erotic maturation. Jam described the recording to Jet as “suggestive, but not explicit” and “a more mature album musically.” He added that he and Lewis “like to think of ourselves as tailors. We look at each artist individually and try to make him or her a suit that’s made especially for the artist.” The suit they cut for Jackson—which, in its celebration of sex, was closer to a birthday suit than any of her previous work—was another smash.
The team paused briefly during this time to look back on a decade’s work. “It’s been 10 wonderful years,” Lewis declared in Jet. “It’s work if you look at it as a job, but music has always been a hobby with us. We were doing it before we got paid, and we’d probably be doing it if we weren’t getting paid.” Megastar Michael Jackson took a page from his sister’s book and hired the team to write and produce material for his HIStory project. Jam took the opportunity to defend the scandal-plagued Michael in Entertainment Weekly. “He’s the biggest prize in the [cultural] jungle,” Jam explained, “and the media’s on this mission to capture him.” He added that both Jacksons have “an ability to elevate the work of everyone around them—through hard work, sheer talent, and a desire not to be second-best.”
Jam and Lewis, meanwhile, had themselves moved into the front rank of pop music, penning and producing hits for established acts—such as Boyz II Men—but also discovering new talent. Among the performers developed under the Perspective banner were hip-hoppers Tanya Von, Mr. Blaq, and Young Zee, and such R&B vocalists as Solo and Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby. Musician summed up the Jam-Lewis appeal in its review of The Night Before Christmas — A Musical Fantasy by the Sounds of Blackness. The magazine dubbed the seasonal hit “another masterful example of how these artist/producers can include everything but the kitchen sink—church choruses, pop leads, street beats and glistening samples—and still sound rich instead of overextended, engaged instead of plotted.” Meanwhile the soundtracks Jam and Lewis assembled for such films as The Money Train and Kazaam frequently outclassed the features themselves, filled as they were with top-flight talent and hit material while avoiding the “scattershot” quality of most anthology albums.
An industry colleague speculated in the Los Angeles Times about the reasons behind their success: “They’re well-rounded musically as far as the genres they can dip into,” he said. “They’re not dominated by their rhythmic or their chordal approach. They’re equal in all areas.” He added that the Jam-Lewis “production technique is probably the finest in the business. There are no holes in their armor.”
Business Smarts, Community Service
The pair’s acumen has extended beyond their skills in the studio; they have shown similar foresight as businessmen. “What sets these two apart form other creative musicians,” marveled Inc. magazine, “is that they’ve channeled this talent through a company that they control and manage. And, boy, do they manage—costs, for instance.” By setting up their production facilities in the small Minnesota town of Edina—rather than Los Angeles or New York—they saved a great deal of money; their involvement on the development side, meanwhile, guaranteed that they would earn more than a mere percentage for their creative work. As Lewis emphasized to the Los Angeles Times, “Without a healthy business practice, there is no room for creativity, because creativity is dwarfed because you’re so worried about how to pay the bills.”
Jam, meanwhile, admitted that at times he has encountered racism in Edina—particularly from the police, who have stopped him numerous times in his various expensive vehicles—but remained philosophical. “It’s unfortunately part of society,” he reflected. “Overall, I think this is a beautiful state and a nice city. I’ve been here all my life. I like it 99 percent of the time. You can’t waste too much energy on the 1 percent.”
The duo also devoted some effort to improving the conditions that gave rise to racism and inequality, chairing an innovative program called the “Literacy Lyric Project.” Co-sponsored by the performance-rights organization ASCAP and the International Association of African American Music, the venture included motivational workshops at inner-city schools stressing reading and other learning skills. The first such workshop took place at North Community High in Minneapolis, which Jam and Lewis attended. “What better way to drive home the importance of reading to our children than through the exceptional talents of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis,” proclaimed ASCAP head Marilyn Bergman--as quoted in the organization’s journal PlayBack. “Their music has given us a new vocabulary, whose notes speak a universal language of art which can inspire and empower our children.”
Jam and Lewis sought to inspire an even larger audience by contributing a song, “Atlanta’s Welcome to the World,” for the 1996 Olympic Games. And they continued to rack up awards and honors. Yet it remained clear that the hit production team’s philosophy had scarcely wavered since the early years. “We never do something for money,” Lewis told the Los Angeles Times. “We do it because creatively we feel we can contribute.”
Selected discography (as producers)
The Time, The Time, Warner Bros., 1981.
The Time, What Time Is It?, Warner Bros., 1982.
Klymaxx, Girls Will Be Girls, Solar, 1982.
S.O.S. Band, On the Rise, Tabu/Epic, 1983.
Change, Change of Heart, RFC/Atlantic, 1984.
Thelma Houston, Qualifying Heat, MCA, 1984.
Cherelle, Fragile, Tabu/Epic, 1984.
Cherelle, High Priority, Tabu/Epic, 1985.
Alexander O’Neal, Alexander O’Neal, Tabu/Epic, 1985.
Force M.D.’s, “Tender Love,” Warner Bros., 1985.
Human League, Crash, A&M, 1986.
Robert Palmer, Riptide, Island, 1986.
Janet Jackson, Control, A&M, 1986.
S.O.S. Band, Sands of Time, Tabu/Epic, 1986.
O’Neal, Hearsay, Tabu/Epic, 1987.
Herb Alpert, Keep Your Eyes on Me, A&M, 1987.
Cherelle, Affair, Tabu/Epic, 1988.
New Edition, Heart Break, MCA, 1988.
O’Neal, All Mixed Up, Tabu/Epic, 1989.
Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, A&M, 1989.
O’Neal, All True Man, Tabu/Epic, 1991.
Karyn White, Ritual of Love, Warner Bros., 1991.
Sounds of Blackness, The Evolution of Gospel, Perspective, 1991.
Mint Condition, Meant to be Mint, Perspective/A&M, 1991.
Various, Mo’ Money (film soundtrack), Perspective/ A&M, 1992.
Sounds of Blackness, The Night Before Christmas — A Musical Fantasy, Perspective, 1992.
Janet Jackson, janet., Virgin, 1993.
Color Me Badd, Time and Chance, Giant, 1993.
Johnny Gill, Provocative, Motown, 1993.
Lisa Keith, Walkin’ in the Sun, Perspective, 1993.
O’Neal, Love Makes No Sense, Tabu, 1993.
Ralph Tresvant, It’s Goin’ Down, MCA, 1993.
Boyz II Men, II, Motown, 1994.
Gladys Knight, Just for You, MCA, 1994.
Patti Labelle, Gems, MCA, 1994.
Lo-Key, Back 2 Da Howse, Perspective, 1994.
Chante Moore, A Love Supreme, MCA, 1994.
Beverly Hills Cop III soundtrack, MCA, 1994.
A Low Down Dirty Shame soundtrack, Jive, 1994.
Raja-Nee, Hot and Ready, Perspective, 1994.
Sounds of Blackness, Africa to America: The Journey of the Drum, Perspective, 1994.
Barry White, The Icon is Love, A&M, 1994.
Karyn White, Make Him Do Right, Warner Bros., 1994.
Janet Jackson, Design of a Decade, 1986/1996, A&M, 1995.
Michael Jackson, HIStory Continues, Past, Present and Future—Book 1, MJJ, 1995.
Money Train (soundtrack), 550, 1995.
Lionel Richie, Louder than Words, Mercury, 1995.
Ann Nesby, I’m Here for You, Perspective, 1996.
Sources
Periodicals
ASCAP Playback, July 1995; January 1996.
Billboard, June 29, 1996.
Elle, March 1993.
Entertainment Weekly, June 23, 1995; October 6,1995.
Inc., January 1990.
Jet, May 24, 1993.
Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1992; June 22, 1996.
Musician, September 1992; January, 1993.
Uptown, April 1992.
Other
Additional information was provided by the Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis homepage on the World Wide Web.
—Simon Glickman