Description
*This is a Vinyl LP*
Release Date: 2021
Label: Strut
Track List
Side A
A1. Forget Me Nots 4:42
A2. I Was Tired Of Being Alone 3:49
A3. All We Need 5:50
A4. Number One (Instrumental) 4:55
Side B
B1. Where There Is Love 3:07
B2. Breakout! 4:04
B3. If Only 3:19
B4. Remind Me 5:15
B5. (She Will) Take You Down To Love 4:20
Side C
C1. Forget Me Nots (12″ Version) 7:18
C2. Breakout (12″ Version) 5:49
Side D
D1. I Was Tired of Being Alone (12″ Version) 7:00
D2. Number One (12″ Version) 6:48
Review
An early-’80s jazz-pop-R&B synthesis as durable and pleasing as any other, Straight from the Heart was Patrice Rushen’s most successful album, at least from a sales standpoint: it peaked at number 14 on the pop chart, 25 slots higher than 1980’s Pizzazz. Still working with a core group of associates — including Freddie Washington, Charles Mims, Paul M. Jackson, and Marlo Henderson (along with a still young Gerald Albright) — that went back to her earlier Elektra albums, the material here is as slick as ever, but not at the expense of lighter rhythms or less memorable melodies. Much of the album’s popularity can be attributed to the club hit “Forget Me Nots,” Rushen’s most-known single — a breezy, buoyant mixture of handclaps, fingersnaps, twisting bass, and Rushen’s typically blissful (and not overplayed) electric piano, not to mention the incorporation of a bad bass-and-percussion breakdown. (If you were born after the mid-’70s or so, you’d be more likely to recognize the song as the basis of Will Smith’s “Men in Black.”) “Remind Me,” despite not being released as a single, is a sweet and low-slung groove that has been sampled and interpolated by no less than a dozen significant rap and R&B songs — including Faith Evans’ “Fallin’ in Love,” Notorious B.I.G.’s “Unbelievable,” MoKenStef’s “He’s Mine,” and Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “I Need You Tonight.” But it’s not like anything about this album requires that kind of validation. Andy Kellman
