Search - Herbie Hancock :: Lite Me Up

We are getting to the good part!

Tall Paul | San Diego, CA United States | 02/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nice R&B album from Hancock and Rod Temperton. Looks like Herbie was inspired from his sessions with Quincy Jones working on The Dude album. This is not a Jazz album although Herbie does some nice solo work on Give It All Your Heart. This album contains the stunning tune Getting To The Good Part, one of the best tunes of 1982. Lots of great stuff on this album, Patrice Rushen contributes lead vocals on Give It All Your Heart, Patti Austin does background vocals, Louis Johnson kills it on bass. Randy Jackson (American Idol judge) who is also an incredible bassist plays bass on Can't Hide Your Love. A great writing collaberation from Herbie and Rod. One of my favorite Herbie recordings"

Herbie's Pop/R&B album

Olukayode Balogun | Leeds, England | 02/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I remember noting, while reviewing Bob James's 1981 album Sign of the Times some time ago, how so many people scrambled to jump on the Rod Temperton bandwagon following the success of Quincy Jones-produced albums like Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, George Benson's Give Me the Night and The Brothers Johnson's Light Up the Night. Temperton, formerly of the UK pop/r&b/soul group Heatwave, was responsible for among many others, the title tunes of all three albums. (George & Louis Johnson did co-write the third one though).



Anyway, this album marked Herbie Hancock's turn on that bandwagon and - primarily due to Temperton's incredible songwriting skills, I would argue - the album actually worked really well. I thought it was huge fun when it came out and still do, 26 years later. The humour in Temperton's lyrics worked well with Hancock's almost playful use of various keyboards here and his tongue in cheek vocal delivery - yes, Herbie even got to sing.



There was a lot of criticism towards Hancock at the time - reflected in some of the reviews below - but at the end of the day, this was a pop/r&b album, not a jazz one and I don't believe Hancock ever intended it to be received as anything else. The only hint of Hancock's jazz pedigree on this album are to be found in "Gettin' To The Good Part", an incredibly exciting study of instrument and vocal arrangement, especially on the bridge, with a manic synth solo by Michael Boddicker, and again on "Give It All Your Heart", Hancock's duet with Patrice Rushen (albeit through vocoders) at the end of which Hancock gives us a stunning electric piano solo that I personally wish could have gone on forever.



Hancock is, has always been and hopefully will always be an experimenter first and a jazz musician second and the expectation that he should restrict himself to 'pure jazz' simply because that's where he started out from is a ridiculously narrow-minded one, in my view. If he felt like making a pop/r&b album, why on earth shouldn't he?



Hancock produced all the tunes himself, except for the piano-driven "Paradise", which was produced by Jay Graydon (he produced Breakin' Away, one of my favourite Al Jarreau albums ever) and the funky "Can't Hide Your Love", which was produced by Narada Michael Walden. Temperton wrote (or co-wrote with Hancock) six of the eight tunes here, except for "Paradise", which was written by Hancock, Graydon, David Foster and Bill Champlin and "Can't Hide Your Love", which was written by Hancock, Walden and Jeffrey Cohen.



Especially noteworthy is the backing vocals work on a couple of the Temperton tunes by Patti Austin (no one handles a Temperton tune like she does!) and the horn arrangements by Jerry Hey. "Motor Mouth" was the dancefloor hit of the day on the college party circuit, though I'm not sure what any of the songs here did on the charts, if anything. Hancock had worked on all three of the albums I mentioned at the top and he had clearly been watching producer Quincy Jones very closely. It shows.



This is a fun album by one of the most influential musicians of our time. My vinyl copy was worn and scratched (but still sold) and I paid through the nose for this CD on Japanese import but I'm just happy to be able to keep it in my collection. I love it!"

Try A Little Understanding

Andre' S Grindle | Bangor,ME. | 04/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Lite Me Up" is a collaberative project between Hancock and
Rod Temperton of Heatwave.Overall the album sounds like Heatwave's recent work (check out Herbie's playing on that bands
'Current' CD of the same vintage)and that is most notable on
"The Bomb","You Can't Hide Your Love" and "Motor Mout".Some of the other cuts are a bit poppy but there are a few clues that
Herbie is about to unleash "Rockit" the following year."Lite Me
Up" serves as a worthy goodbye to this tenative stage in Herbie's career and the end of his 70's funk sound.A follow up
to "Magic Windows" rather then a precusur to "Future Shock"."