Scribbler's Throwback of the Week: Jennifer Holliday, "Hard Times For Lovers"

A lot of people--old and young--may not know much about Texas native Jennifer Holliday outside of her Tony-winning performance as Effie White and her Grammy-winning performance of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls in 1981.  I bet that a lot more folks who are somewhat familiar with their 80s pop may not instantly recognize her voice toward the end of Foreigner's classic 1985 hit, "I Want to Know What Love Is".  For whatever reason, she was just one example of how certain women--and that can be equated with women of certain skin complexions AND sizes--with big voices weren't being pushed hard enough by or given the right material for their voices from their record companies in the 1980s.  (Think Shirley Murdock: it took Elektra almost a year to have their "eureka" moment and release "As We Lay" after her first two singles from her eponymous debut album did little in jump starting her solo career.)  However, I could write a separate dissertation of a post about music business politics; my throwback posts are about the actual music, so on with it...