Mp3 Nicki Richards - Tell Me...
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"Tell Me..." showcases the formidable production and arranging talents of Nicki Richards, one of the most highly respected singers in the music business. Special guests include Randy Brecker, Christian McBride, Lenny White and Take 6. 14 MP3 Songs in this album (66:39) ! Related styles: Urban/R&B: Rhythm Blues, Urban/R&B: Soul, Solo Female Artist People who are interested in Alicia Keys Jill Scott Lalah Hathaway should consider this download. Details: Nicki Richards Tell Me An Introduction Color me a world / Make it all appear / Fill my dreams with kings and queens and castles million miles from here Nicki Richards (from Tell Me - penned upon and inspired from Herbie Hancocks classic melody Tell Me a Bedtime Story) Wise ones once professed, A Jill of many trades tis a master of none. Said philosophers never met Nicki Richards most extraordinary and highly favored Spin Sorceress SupremeHer Majesty of the Musical Moon and Starsaboard her Stone Soul Spaceship. Planet hopping genres with panache and purpose, the wizardress waxes thoughtful and deep, fun and flirtatious, spiritual yet seductive, constantly tested yet steadfastly faithful. Nicki is never at a loss for a song. The latest luscious fruit of her inspiration is Tell Me - Nickis third album and the second via her own Hydrus Music company following 2008s Nicki. The most important thing to know about Nicki Richards The Musician is that she records luxuriantly expansive modern soul music. And when you drop the metaphorical needle on said record, OVERSTAND that this lady composed, produced, arranged, played and SANG (leads and layered backgrounds) 80 of every note you hearthen custom-casted the remaining 20 with a talented rainbow of friends from jazz legends Randy Brecker, Christian McBride and Lenny White to vocal virtuosos Take 6, Trey Lorenz, Lisa Fischer, Tawatha Agee, Fonzi Thornton and Vaneese Thomas to dance club tastemakers Tony Moran, Parrish James, Josh Harris and DJ Inferno. The most important thing to know about Nicki Richards The Woman is that she is all about The Love. For the teasingly titled Tell Me, she takes a skin dive under the
covers to explore what a woman dreams when imagining The Love of a Lifetime. My original title was A Wish, A Dream, she shares. I started thinking about the ideal relationship when things are on-and-poppin, what does that feel like - in hopes of manifesting something better than what I had. It began to feel like a wonderful concept for an albumthen the songs just started flowing. The album opens with Queen, as easily every womans theme as Nickis own womanifesto. Violins cellos dance a courtship minuet as Nicki lays out a regal affirmation and the conditions a prospective king must meet to stand by her side. O but you must be sure / You must understand all I endure / All the lonely nights of conquering / How I need someone to handle me / And treat me like the queen I am / And love me as I command I was just vibing off the grand films of Sofia Coppola, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren, and got carried away to another time, she states on behalf of the songs inspiration. All of these characters led such intense lives. Queen Elizabeth was a serious conquerorbut she was so lonely. Or Marie Antoinette having everything but still being so alone. Many women feel this. Well, like many in my culture, I was raised to be an African American queen - and I deserve to have it all. On cue appears Knight in Shining Armor, an older song of Nickis thats time arrived as the perfect answer to Queen. Drenched in the aural luxuriance of Nickis lushly layered vocals and a musical Hejaz fantasia of literatures classic Scheherazade and 1001 Arabian Nights, it represents a space and time that Nicki loves to visit when sizing up the hero of her dragon-slayer dreams. With rave anthem written all over it, the albums first single Lay Your Hands On Me dually conjures the sensual and the spiritual - imageries of surrender and healing as our heroine dances upon a cloud, Heaven-bound. Im more a spiritual person than religious, Nicki confesses, but I found myself turning to the Bible more than once while making this record. I was re-reading stories about Mary Magdalene, and the woman that touched the hem of Jesus garment and was healed forever. That feeling is what this song is really about. On the other hand, Kiss Kiss Kiss destined to be the international all-points pop breakthrough that Nicki has long deserved - is all about the union of lips as euphoric overture to romantic symphonies of endless movements and variations. Kiss Kiss Kiss came out of a relationship I was in that was hot and heavy, she swoons. I was also reminded of first lovefirst kisseshow that feels in the pit of your stomach and wanting to revisit that feelingagain and again. Nicki sings AND raps on this irresistible ode to lovers favorite pastime that will take its place at the chart top alongside Rihanna and Beyonce hits. Kiss on this Back in Dance Land, Nicki teams with singer Trey Lorenz her sidekick from many tours singing backup for Mariah Carey on We Got Each Other, a joy- filled high
stepper she co-wrote with Everett Bradley as a tribute to her younger brother, Philip, and their ever-strengthening bond of sibling-ship: Im so glad theres a you in my life... Interpolating a hook from an album cut classic that Chaka Khan and her little brother Mark Stevens co-wrote and sang called We Got Each Other (from Khans LP What Cha Gonna Do For Me 1981), Nicki and company, are having an audible ball. We were acting a fool in the studio playing follow the leader, Nicki signifies, so effortless! We laughed more than we sang. The album centerpiece is Tell Me, a soundscape out of the sweetest of dreams... It finds Nicki weaving spark and homage in her honorable wedding of a lyric to the timeless melody of jazz piano chameleon Herbie Hancocks 1969 chestnut, Tell Me a Bedtime Story. What was written decades ago by Hancock as score music for Bill Cosbys Fat Albert Saturday cartoon is interpreted here as the grown- up dreams of a woman still very much in touch with the dreaming child inside her. Like Parallel Universe on my last album, I was thinking, What would I like to feel in my perfect universe? Those chord changes and that melody were exactly what I wanted to hear. Then I thought, Now how can I get more of me in there, R&B style? What Nicki created in her otherworldly melding of keyboard and synthesizer textures feels like the surround sound comforter of the spheres Hancock will be moved. My favorite part of the arrangement is the song just grooving along when - all of a sudden - the bottom drops out, youre freefalling then Randy Brecker takes over playing all that beautiful Flugelhorn with all of this space around him. I felt pretty bold doing that just caressing him with ambient keyboard sound. Then at the ending fade into the la-la childrens round with the music box melodythats what my dreams sound like. Tell Me pours like warm massage oil into Sunday Morning, an evocative lyric reflecting fleeting indulgences of intimacy. Ever imagined what an encounter between Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, Miles Davis and Ron Carter might sound like? Your wish is Richards command, featuring an encore from Brecker (this time on muted trumpet), the seamless tandem coloring of percussionist Bashiri Johnson and drummer Lenny White, the ubiquitous Christian McBride plucking playfully mesmerizing upright bass, and Nicki accompanying the serene ache of her singing at the piano. Kiss me til Im breathless / Flood each of my senses / Evening dare not end this / Endless morning Men will melt at the next pair of songs sentiments that lift them high enough to kiss the sky. First is the smoldering funk of Precious featuring Nicki tapping into some Bobby Debarge-inspired falsetto crooning, some tangy blues guitar from Robin Macatangay and a wicked second verse couplet: Wrapped up in our sheets / How I love the way we move / Youre digging into me / Like the rarest vinyl groove This is followed by the more 360-degree love
praise of Extraordinary, a number that packs a powerful punch as it builds to a soulful and brassy finish worthy of a Broadway finale. The Chops Horns quartet (arranged by Nicki with member Daryl Dixon) sees to that. And like that arrangement, Extraordinary began life as a seed that took on a growth spurt all of its own. I originally wrote it as a contemporary jazz instrumental, Nicki reveals, a ballad with a vocal hook for a keyboardist I was working with. I fleshed out all that wistful Sly Stone-styled piano with some horns I dreamt up thinking of Earth Wind Fire. The song is my way of honoring exceptional men in my life from friendships and relationships. Extraordinary comes back in the sexier slight return of Extra 02 (interlude) later. Now you KNOW there had to be some funk up in here and Nicki drops it on ya HOT with a song about her trusty 12-seater heater of a Spaceship. A Holidelic Galaxian from way back, Commander Richards pilots only the hippest, horns-driven, Don Cornelius-approved, in-flight throw-downs - fueled by Sherrod Barnes high-octane guitar and Artie Reynolds humpin on That Bass. That groove goes back to my teens, Nicki declares, referencing its original coordinates. I used to sing it under a different song. My brother Philip recognized it and called me on it. Its since spiraled into a whole new thang! After an excursion of such Uncut Funk propulsion taking errbody to The Bridge and dropping them off safe in sound On The One Her Majesty could have but one Final Destination for the one worthy passenger that remains The Motherland. All the delicious extended foreplay leads to the carnal culmination of Hungry. Imagine a womans body as the continent of Africa, she suggests with a now-quiet intensity. Shes in lovedesirousand long in need of release. Time to make the rain pour down As David Manns wanton tenor parts the waves then Lisa Fischers and Greg Clarks voices mist the earthen bed, Nicki ascends the ladder of passion with a rivetingly modulated vocal, topped with the tangiest cherry of a spoken word breakdown. My skin hungers for your skin / Hungers to feel your touch / I cant get close enough / (So) Hungry for your love Theres nowhere left to ascend except to higher philosophical planes as Nicki plumbs her inner Al Green Gandhi to impart a message about how progress on this troubled planet can be achieved once we become the Change in the World. Joined by the formidable Amen corner of Tawatha Agee, Vaneese Thomas and Fonzi Thornton, Nicki hammers her point home with Isisian Thunder: Dont let the pills and the lies / Keep people falling asleep / And when the system is wrong / Stand up! Say what you believe / Weve got to open our eyes / Dont let corruption dictate / Tear the roof off the truth / Love is stronger.Love is stronger than anything Surely - the final song on Tell Me - stands alone as a deeply personal piece representing The Light that pulled Nicki from a seemingly ceaseless night during a heavy
period of grieving. Between her 2008 CD Nicki and this one, Richards lost several friends and musical associates, her Aunt, her Grandfather... and her Father. I wrote Surely for my grandfather who passed around the same time as Michael Jackson, she says softly. I was sad I couldnt go to his funeral because I was on the road. I was in Israelstanding at the Wailing Wall just crying thinking about him and all of the people Id lost. I started reciting Psalm 23 as a comfort. I later read other Psalms in the Bible and found phrases that were inspiring - of people trying to hold on to their faith. I lifted those thoughts and strung them together into Surely. Surely features a brilliant signature vocal performance from very special guest ensemble Take 6, and a robust overdubbing of hand drumming and percussion by Everett Bradley. The song provided her a chance to stretch her vocal arranging skills.Take 6 recorded their parts at their studio in Nashville. I sent them my vocal sketch then Mark Kibble arranged it to the nth degree! Im proud of my basic framework - I wrote it with them in mind, voicing the chords in their style. I sent my demo with a note that read, Dont laugh at my rough T6 ideas, now! Im sure Mark got a good laugh out of that. Everett is playing all kinds of crazy percussion and I have a loop in there, too. I wanted the track to have an arranged feel over a tribal feel. Theres beauty and faith in there but also some darkness - mostly in the bass. My people are from New Orleans where theres always a hint of danger. I had to have a pinch of thatamidst all the glory. ***** Dreaming big panned out like solid gold for Diamond Girl Nicki Richards. As one of the most highly respected singers in the business, Nicki has traveled around the globe spreading musical love shine in multiple languages for sessions, concerts, film and television, and at the service of an untouchable array of superstars that includes Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Cliff, Mick Jagger, Chris Botti, Florence + The Machine and Enrique Iglesiasnames representing merely the tip of a staggering mountaintop of talent. Nicki recently arranged and recorded a transfixing, kalimba-drenched rendition of John Lennon Paul McCartneys Ill Be Back to the multi-artist collective project The Complete Beatles on Ukulele. With longtime mentor Lenny White, she co-wrote and sang a highly unique jazz-rock fusion tribute to King of Pop Michael Jackson (another artist for whom she has sung) titled Forever (from Whites 2010 CD, Anomaly). And for the fourth time, Nicki is jetting around the globe with superstar Madonna on her 2012 MDNA World Tour as a background singer and featured belting the cleansing coda of her smash hit Like a Prayer - before hundreds of thousands of people on especially epic nights. Wedding boundless creativity to fierce professionalism and the kind of personality that makes everyone all day suckers for her love, Nicki Richards has stealthily commanded her rightful
position in the upper echelons of international R&B/Pop/ Dance music. She is also on the National Board of Trustees of The Recording Academy so her juice runs like bottomless mimosas at Sunday brunch. Im so blessed to be a working musician and to have been so successful for such a long time, she offers humbly. Ive developed so many relationships from my studio work, touring, television performances, musical theatre (Cy Colemans Like Jazz) and movies (Colorz of Rage). Those are all places in which I live and thrive. Thats becoming more and more the case today. We must be diverse. As the Hawaii-born daughter of a high-ranking African American Naval officer, Nicki has lived in places all over the world from California to Pensacola. All of that moving was daunting but provided Nicki with priceless insights into people that shaped her vision and outlook on the world. The depth of Nicki Richards' artistry stems from her indigenously musical family. Her mother Donna Blackmon is a professional singer who sang with Cannonball Adderley a ringer for Nancy Wilson who subbed on dates that the superstar could not make with the alto sax giant. Nicki's grandmother, Lurlean Blackmon was a pianist, organist and the choir director for five Primitive Baptist churches. Nicki's baby brother Philip Richards is a singer/musician who fronts the rock band Status Joe. And Nicki's father Harry Richards, while not a musician, had an incredibly eclectic taste in music (Ahmad Jamal, Rare Earth, WAR, John Coltrane, America, etc.) that shaped Nicki's taste as well. Nicki's father cast a looming shadow to the core of her insatiable drive toward excellence. "He always expected me to be more, Nicki states. When it came to school work, he'd say, B isn't going to make it. Where is the A?' Then I'd bring home an A+ and he'd say, 'Well, that's exactly what I expected. What else you got for me?' It was never ending and that's what makes me tick. I know I'm worthy, regardless, but deep down I'll always be that girl looking for daddy's approval." Ms. Richards first graced us with her magnificence in 1991 with Naked (To the World) - a dynamic debut of aural alchemy that blindsided the musically astute, leaving them stroking their chins, mind-blown and pondering, "Whered this bad ass babe come fromwith all these bangin' beats?" Legendary Atlantic Records co-founding President Ahmet Ertegun personally inked Nicki to the company tersely declaring, "I signed Aretha Franklin. I signed Led Zeppelin. Now I'm signing you!" By all accounts Nicki delivered a highly impressive debut. From unforgettable covers of Seals Crofts "Summer Breeze," the Isley Brothers' "Voyage to Atlantis and the wistful reflection "Paris" (penned by the sublime Tina Harris), to her soul ballad What Happened to Us (featuring Marcus Miller on bass), the euphoria-filled Sunshine, the pointed message New Days of Rage and THE sexiest slice of femme fatale funk of the 90s, "Naked," Nicki's
Naked (To the World) is now a collectors item - especially its Superfly-inspired die cut promo-edition. But behind the scenes drama at then- transitioning Atlantic compromised the promotion of Naked. Disheartened, Nicki opted out of her contract and concentrated on the lucrative super side-woman scene. 17 years later in 2008, Nicki Richards triumphantly returned with a 17-song CD of uncompromised creativity, versatility and excellence titled Nicki (launched via her own company, Hydrus Music). Promoted with a maxi-single filled with remixes of the uplifting unity anthem Bring the Love and an ironically steamy video for the heartbreak jam Why You Wanna Hurt Me So Bad, Nicki was the answer to Richards long devoted fans prayers. Other highlights were the churchy Lawdy (inspired by personal and regional devastation post-Hurricane Katrina) and a funk- fortified missive about getting your moral values straight titled Check Yourself (featuring the mighty Tower of Power Horns and Herculean drummer supreme Dennis Chambers). However, the depth-charge pulse of Nicki was detonated in its second half suite of exquisitely expressed love-longing songs richly imaginative titles such as Alpha Centauri, Parallel Universe, Happening to Me Again, Say the Words and I Have Loved You Always. Those songs sowed the seeds for the bumper crop of night flights that fill Tell Me all from an Earth Angel who, in spite of all, never gives up on her dream of eternal love. If you let it, music can remake youmake you resilient despite all things, Nicki promises. I wanted to celebrate life in honor of all the loved ones I lost, to share that there is always hope even when times are not so great, and to manifest my fantasies as they pertain to love. My first thought was that as a child at bedtime, I would have story time, get on my knees to say my prayers, then climb into bed and dreamand I would dream big! Im still doing that to this day. Slip between the sheets and open Nicki Richards Tell Me to the pages of your deepest desires... Wind your imagination down spiral stair journeys to galaxies and kingdoms game of thrones unfolding, nights of fancy calling, knights of fantasy conquering wrapped in romantic splendor and aural ecstasy. Where the wishes of loves true believers dot rings round mountainsrun rings round the insurmountable rendering all fantasies realwhenever dreams are illuminated from within. So blow out the night light, draw down your wide screen eyelids, rest your head upon Nickis surrealistic pillowand let the bedtime story begin. The Queen will receive you now. - A. Scott Galloway
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