Yes “All This Love” is such a great song that it is more than deserving of Part Deux, Treux, Quareux or whatever numbers I just made up. That’s always been the driving force behind this series – the songs. As we always state a great song has that special trait that makes it so inviting over and over and over again.
For the most part #Growns we know the score on this 1983 classic from DeBarge penned by none other than El DeBarge. For my money “All This Love” is one of the greatest ballads every written and as I often joke the original recording is one of the best Bossa Nova tunes that just happens to be R&B.
Today’s cover taken from Calvin Richardson’s 2014 release I Am Calvin is what we call ’round these parts “Good and Grown”. A lot of the appeal for me on this take is Calvin’s sublime vocal tone. Calvin takes the Midwestern undertone that was superimposed upon early 80’s L.A. Urban Chic of the original and provides a new century down home major Southern City realness as evidenced by a great ad-lib like “You can get it girl…” among other personal touches.
I’ll admit a song as iconic as “All This Love” is one of those songs that you can easily get lost in the long shadow that its legacy casts and end up dialing in a Friday Night It’s Alright Karaoke Version. That’s not what’s going on here. The production of team of Eric Benet and Demonte Posey provide ample space for Calvin to do his thing his way. With Eric holding down the backing vocals Calvin is really allowed to get loose and hold court especially after the instrumental break on through to the coda.
Musically this cover is in the just right category – not overdoing it in any way in the arrangement and the string arrangement in the intro provides a glimpse of the warmth that is all over this track. What I like about this track is that it’s 2014 being 2014 and not feeling it had to be a period piece and mock-up 1983.
Press play.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.
