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...

As the lead-off single to her 1985 album Say You Love Me, I first recall stumbling upon "Hard Times For Lovers" around 2002 via Yahoo! Music (back when it was still LAUNCH) as a playlist suggestion.  As soon as it came on, I had two immediate thoughts: 1) "dang, I only know like 2-3 songs by Jennifer Holliday" and 2) "this song sounds like it's from the mid 80s...and I dig everything about it."  However, it was the words and Holliday's soulful vocal execution of them that really did it for me and made this my favorite song of hers.  (Yeah yeah yeah, I know like most people that "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is a more classic and overall better song...UHH DUHHHH!!!  It's just my 2nd favorite, that's all.)  Just the first two bars of the second verse get me every time: "How can I expect you to never want another?  Why should I believe that you'd be the perfect one?"  That's the kind of stuff that people often dance around in relationships because they don't want to think of their significant other being attracted to other people.  I just appreciate the overall tenor of the song: a successful relationship is built upon being realistic about hardships and temptations, although it's not a license to go out and do you and everyone else in the process, and being real with each other.  So if you find yourself at a crossroads in your relationship and need a bit of musical encouragement, then Ms. Holliday might be speaking your language.