On September 12, 1944, Barry White was born. White was a singer, songwriter, and producer who became one of pop music’s great romantic icons in the 1970s.
White was born in Galveston, Texas, but grew up in Los Angeles. He learned to play the piano as a child, mostly from imitating what he heard on his mother’s classical records. White’s voice changed relatively late in life, at 14, but when the change came, it was quick and dramatic, leaving him with a deep baritone.
He began working in the Los Angeles music industry in the early 1960s. He produced some singles and recorded under various names, both with singing groups and as a solo act. None of this early work made much of an impression. In the mid-1960s, White was hired by Del-Fi Records, where he had his first small success writing and producing some minor hits for R&B singer Felice Taylor.
In 1972, White got a record deal for Love Unlimited, a girl group that he’d been working with for a few years. They had a run of success in the early 1970s, including a pair of hits written and produced by White, “I Belong to You” and “Walkin’ in the Rain With the One I Love.” Those songs can both be heard on The Best of Love Unlimited.
White created the Love Unlimited Orchestra in 1973. The 40-piece ensemble was originally meant to be a backing band for Love Unlimited, but White began working with them on their own. The Orchestra’s 1973 single, “Love’s Theme,” was an instrumental, a fusion of R&B rhythm with lush orchestral sound. It’s often cited as an important forerunner to the disco era that was about to begin. The Best of Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra covers the highlights of their career; if you’d like more, their first seven albums are packaged in a large box set.
While Love Unlimited and the Love Unlimited Orchestra were having their greatest success, White was also recording some demos of new songs for a male singer he hoped to work with. Music executive Larry Nunes, who had helped to finance the first Love Unlimited album, urged White to build an album of his own around the new songs. White was reluctant to venture into recording but agreed to do so. It was only as the album cover was about to be printed that he decided to use his own name instead of the pseudonym he’d been considering, “White Heat.”
The album,I’ve Got So Much to Give, was a success, and the single “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More Baby” was a #1 R&B hit. (You may be noticing by now that White liked long song titles.) Over the next five years, White’s deep rumble of a voice was a regular presence on R&B radio. By 1977, he’d topped the R&B charts four more times, with “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” (which was also a #1 pop hit), “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything,” “What Am I Gonna Do With You,” and “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me.”
As the disco era wound down, White’s success was less dramatic and less frequent, but he never entirely vanished from the scene. He had a few minor hits in the late 1980s, and enjoyed a small comeback in the 1990s. He made guest appearances on albums by Quincy Jones (on “The Secret Garden”) in 1990 and Big Daddy Kane (on “All of Me”) in 1991.
White returned to the top of the R&B charts for the first time in almost 20 years in 1994 with “Practice What You Preach.” In 1996, he recorded duets with Tina Turner, “In Your Wildest Dreams”, and Chris Rock, “Basketball Jones,” a cover of Cheech & Chong’s 1973 song, recorded for the movie Space Jam.
A new generation of fans discovered White’s music in 1997, when “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” was frequently heard on the TV show Ally McBeal; one of the show’s lawyer characters used the song to boost his confidence before court appearances.
White released his final album in 1999. The title song, “Staying Power,” won two Grammy Awards. White had been nominated for the Grammy nine times before, but these were his first wins.
In September of 2002, White was hospitalized with kidney failure. While on dialysis and awaiting a transplant, he suffered a severe stroke in May 2003, and died on July 4 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
All of the White singles mentioned above are included in the greatest hits collection Barry White Gold. More of his music is available for streaming at hoopla, including a one-stop package of his albums from 1973-1979, the height of his career.