![]() Baker won another Grammy the next year for a duet on the Winans' "Ain't No Need to Worry." By the time of her 1988 release, G iving You The Best I Got, Baker was at the top of her game, and the disc immediately topped by the Pop and Soul charts. ![]() The first single, "Watch Your Step," was a moderate Soul hit, but it was the catchy follow up ballad, "Sweet Love," that brought across-the-board attention to the album and resulted in Baker winning 1986 Grammy Awards for best R&B Female Vocalist and best R&B Song. It also attracted the attention of Elektra Records, which signed Baker to her first major label deal.īaker teamed with former Chapter 8 bandmate Michael Powell for her wonderful Elektra debut, Rapture. However, she absolutely nailed two songs on the album, the big ballad "No More Tears" and "Angel," a jazzy, mellow cut that became a smash on Black radio and created an immediate buzz for the unheard of singer and record label. The resulting album was The Songstress, a roughly arranged album that showed a developing young star with a beautifully smokey, deep voice, still learning her craft. ![]() The humiliated Baker left music, taking an administrative job in a Detroit lawyer's office before she was approached to record a 1983 album for upstart California label Beverly Glen (which also signed Bobby Womack around the same time to record his now classic The Poet). However, the group only recorded one 1979 album and Baker was labeled by Arista as a mediocre lead singer not worth supporting. Not long after completing high school, Baker joined Chapter 8, a local group that had signed a national record contract with Ariola Records, later a part of Arista. ![]() ![]() She had been singing in various groups and choirs in her native Detroit since she was a teenager, but while she was loved locally, she had received enough negative reviews from record label execs that, at age 22, she was ready to quit music for good. Both beautiful and an extremely talented singer and songwriter, Anita Baker was nearly a no show for the world of music. ![]()
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