Sami McKinney Was Here
Sami McKinney was warm, funny and had some of the best gossip in Hollywood. Lord knows he could also be catty and stubborn, but time with Sami was usually spent in smiles and laughter.
I don't even remember how I met Sami. Probably back in the '90s, most likely through our mutual friend, Klymaxx producer and songwriter, Bernadette Cooper. I'd run into him at the dry cleaners, or at Farmer's Market on third and Fairfax. An only child who loved to cook almost as much as he loved Bernice, his mother, Sami would peruse the Market's fresh vegetables stand or haggle with a merchant for the best cut of chicken or fish while we talked.
Our conversations were usually about the thing that connected us most: music. In addition to knowing his way around a kitchen, by profession Sami was a songwriter and producer. He co-wrote and/or produced songs for, among others, Patti Labelle, Santana, Lalah Hathaway, Anita Baker and Chaka Khan. While Baker's "(I Love You) Just Because" might be his best known copyright, my favorite McKinney tune is Baker's rendition of "It's Been You."
Sami and I both shared the unvarnished opinion that, aside from a few desperate exceptions, black pop is going to hell in a hand basket. Our camaraderie was sealed the day we discovered we both harbored sheer bewilderment at the success and accolades bestowed a certain black female singer considered one of the most important of her generation.
"They [the singer's fans] ask me, 'Don't you feel her pain?'" Sami loved to say. "And I say, 'Yes, I DO feel pain--she's flat, off key and it pains my ears.'" We discussed new artists and current music, deciding what was hot, while wondering how other newly released recordings ever saw the light of day.
Despite our pessimism, Sami was optimistic about pop music's future. "Real music," he'd declare, in reference to the skilled, impassioned musical and vocal craftsmanship that defines true R&B, "is going to make a comeback. Today's music just has to hit rock bottom to the point that people will say no to all the non singing, no-songwriting posers. The public will say, 'Enough!' And baby, when they do, I'll be there."
Sami's words echoed through my mind as I sat in L.A.'s Trinity Baptist Church last Saturday afternoon. It all seemed so surreal. One week Sami was here, and the next week I'm leafing through his funeral program. Gone at the age of fifty.
You can't know this until you get there, but fifty is when you're shifting your life into second gear. It is a wonderful place in adulthood, when you begin to know just what you want to do with the rest of your life. And to be sure, the stories shared by those who knew him characterized Sami's zest for living. Singer Freda Payne told the congregation that it was only at the service--while reading the date of birth in his obituary just before taking the podium--that she realized Sami was but a teenager in the '70s when he'd come hear her sing at the very adult Playboy Club in Los Angeles.
Patti LaBelle, during an audio tape played to the audience, told how she first met Sami years ago: Backstage before a show in Los Angeles, her hair just wouldn't act right. Desperate, she sent someone onstage to ask the crowd if there was a hairdresser in the house--did I mention Sami was also a hair stylist? Sami promptly stood up and was quickly ushered backstage. Consequently, a do' was done and a lifelong friendship born.
Of course, it figures that Sami's homegoing, attended by talented, teary-eyed singers and musicians, would feature some soul-stirring singing. Vocalists Terry Dexter, Randy Phillips, Merry Clayton and The Perri Sisters tugged at heart strings while taking the roof off the place with great performances, some of them improvised. It was enthralling to witness singers, on impulse, simply get up, take the mic and have the rhythm section, including a purring, emotion-snatching B-3 organ, fall in and create an entertaining performance.
However, as much as the music warmed my heart, it also saddened me, for I was reminded that everything going on in the pulpit that day in honor of Sami--the wonderful singing and intuitive musicianship--is slowly seeping out of the body of contemporary black music.
For example, the other morning I caught a young man on TV being heralded as so-called Neo Soul's latest light. To a prerecorded music track, he and two background singers performed a musical idea that could have been a song if someone had taken the time to develop a musical bridge for it. Also on stage was an artist--a real one, complete with easel--who, as the young man sang, sketched a drawing to the music. Novel idea. Having a real musician up there would have been cool, too.
They want me to believe Amy Winehouse is a soul singer, and I say no, no, no.
Samuel, my man, I understand that I have to come to grips on my own with your sudden passing. But in the meantime, if you could send down a few original melodies and some uplifting lyrics, we'd certainly appreciate it.
- Steven Ivory
Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM or MYfeedback@eurweb.com
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