9 White Soulful Singers We Once Thought Were Black Pt. 2
Posted On : January 29, 2015
Taylor Dayne – Do you remember her big R&B hit “I’ll Always Love You” in 1988? We all thought she was Angela Bofill. She had a couple others we heard like “Tell It To My Heart”.
Boz Scaggs – His biggest R&B hit was “Lowdown” in 1976, and it was a SMASH back in the day.
Jon B. – He had the Babyface production behind him and he did a song with Bobby Brown. So with that, most of us thought he was black. What about his duet with Babyface “Someone To Love”? On top of all of that, this dude even wrote for Michael Jackson, After 7 and Toni Braxton.
The Bee Gees had soul back in the day, didn’t they? Not only were they not Black, they weren’t even American (they’re from England), but sang like they had that true soul funk pumping through their veins. It’s just like the Old School saying goes I guess: ‘It ain’t about where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.’
Color Me Badd – Okay so they did have one black member, but when we first heard them, most of us probably thought they were going to look like New Edition. Now they didn’t have as many hits as N.E., but they were too hip to not be an all black group…or at least we thought so, but they showed us, didn’t they? You might call them the AWB of the 90s. One of the top ten biggest and memorable hits of the 90’s belong to them “I Wanna Sex You Up”.
Joe Cocker – Sadly he just left us a few weeks ago…may he rest well. Some thought he was black or least sounded black. He covered a few R&B classics like “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “You Are So Beautiful”. And we know him from his duet on “Up Where We Belong” on the An Officer And A Gentleman soundtrack. Who will ever forget his quirky way of singing live?
Daryl Hall & John Oates – When we first heard “Sara Smile” some of us didn’t think they were African American, but then there some who really thought it was a new black group until we saw them on Soul Train and went “oh my God, did you know they were white”? Although all of their songs weren’t as soulful as “Sara Smile,” they were still very soulful nonetheless. They had a few more hits on the R&B Charts like “One On One” and even topped the charts with “I Can’t Go For That”.
We salute the incredible people and beautiful memories of that "old school". We’re not saying that every artist and every facet of the soul era was perfect, but the artists’ contributions to soul music and the old school memories of that particular time are PRICELESS.
