[ jimmy jam + terry lewis : thanks for listening ]

[ t e x t . o n l y . v e r s i o n ]

by Cyclone Wehner

What distinguishes these new skool veterans, besides an enduring enthusiasm for music-making, is their remarkable capacity for diversification. And, whereas the clients of Kenny Edmonds (aka Babyface) and R. Kelly tend to be echoes of their mentors, these Twin Cities players evidently give artists the space to be themselves. 'I think it's really because we're fans of everybody that we work with,' says Jimmy, himself an engaging subject (and the regular media spokesman). 'You get inspired when you're a fan of somebody; you really wanna do great work because you wanna have the feeling that a fan has when they go to a record store to buy a record. You wanna feel that excitement like, "Woo, if I bought this record, this is the song I'd love to hear."'

The longtime friends' infamous departure from the Paisley Park funk group, The Time, provided a change of direction in 1983. Ever the control freak, Prince was unhappy to learn that the two musos had been moonlighting as producers in an Atlanta studio with The SOS Band. He sacked them on the pretext of their inadvertently missing a Time concert in Texas when a snowstorm struck. As it happened, things turned out for the best. The Time counted among its line-up some of the 80s' most gifted musicians (Jesse Johnson, Monte Moir), but only Jam and Lewis have remained in the spotlight. After The SOS Band enjoyed a smash with the single "Just Be Good To Me", there was no looking back.

The Grammy-winning pair's most celebrated work has been with Janet Jackson, for whom they have overseen a series of envelope-pushing albums from "Control" (1986) onwards. But they have also hooked-up with the likes of The Human League, George Michael, New Edition, Boyz II Men, Luther Vandross and Mary J Blige. 'It's the combinations that make it cool,' Jimmy decides. 'That's what keeps the creative juices flowing.' Indeed, he points out that the pair revel in working with both old acts, such as The Isley Brothers, and newcomers like Wyclef Jean ('he is the guy right now').

Launched in the early 90s, the duo's Perspective label virtually became A&M's defacto urban department. It was home to a host of credible acts: Sounds Of Blackness, Mint Condition and Solo. While these didn't always meet with the kind of platinum sales due to them, Jimmy insists that he and Terry were content with the public response. 'Our vision for the label was always that the music should be good music first, and then we would worry about turning it into a hit record later,' he says. 'For the type of acts they were, and the fact that it wasn't necessarily hit-driven music, we thought that those acts were very successful.'

Nevertheless, after A&M's executives decided to turn Perspective into a logo only, the pair hesitated before accepting another label offer elsewhere. How come? 'It was really a lot of work,' Jimmy responds. 'We just enjoyed writing and producing songs and we didn't so much enjoy the day-to-day business of running a label.' Of the many proposals they received, they finally elected to align themselves with Universal, who promised full backing. So far the duo's new Flyte Tyme imprint has bravely released a brilliant, while not obviously commercial, album by hip-hop folkstress Angel Grant ("Album") and a star-struck soundtrack, "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", which features a mix of dancehall, R&B and hip-hop. Yet to come is the debut release from Kevin Ford, a R&B crooner Jimmy describes as being reminiscent of two past clients, Alexander O'Neal (another Minneapolis icon) and Johnny Gill.

The "Stella" soundtrack has already proven itself a huge US crossover success. The story behind its assembly says a lot about the way Jimmy and Terry work. Somewhat unusually, all of the music can be heard in the movie -- an adaptation of Terry McMillan's best-selling love story. The record producers sought out some of their famous friends (Janet) and the artists on their wish-list (Me'Shell Ndegeocello, K-Ci & JoJo) for the project. Other songs (take Wyclef's cover of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin)", featuring the man himself) seemed to be born out of sheer serendipity. But the producers primarily took their cues from the script, as various artists (Mary J Blige) were cited throughout McMillan's novel.

Fortunately, the hitmakers had already established a fruitful working relationship with the Queen of hip-hop soul, producing the songs "Love Is All We Need" and "Everything" (which Mary has identified as one of her favourites) for her last album. Having fought hard for her autonomy under Puff Daddy and the Uptown posse, Blige (as with Janet) has since disclosed that she appreciates collaborating with the Minnesotans because they don't impose themselves.

'I don't think she comprehended what big Mary J Blige fans we were,' Jimmy says in response. 'I remember when the "My Life" album came out and I just drove people crazy. You know how sometimes a record comes out and you just play it for everybody?,' he breaks off in laughter. 'It's funny -- before she came to town we had a conversation with her manager. Her manager said, "You know, we just wanna have a conference call with you guys and just talk about what you're gonna do." We said, "Well, we don't KNOW what we're gonna do. We have some tracks that we've prepared. We can produce some tracks for you. We can create a track from brand new. We can do lyrics; you can do lyrics. We're totally open. We're just gonna get together and have some fun." She said that when she heard us say that, she didn't think it was gonna be like that. I don't know WHAT she thought. I think she was a little intimidated, because she thought we were gonna dictate to her, but we've never been like that. The artist has always been the most important part of the creative process with us.'

It transpires that Blige's cut on "Stella" (the luxurious groove-ballad, "Beautiful") must count as one of her finest moments. 'The director wanted a song for one of the love scenes,' Jimmy recollects. 'And so we came up with that. We called it "Beautiful". We didn't have a lyric concept. When we gave it to Mary, she asked if she could write the lyrics and we said, "Absolutely".'

With the comparably soulful K-Ci and JoJo Hailey, the producers took an altogether different route, Jimmy confesses. As a matter of fact, they sought to make the kind of track for which Jodeci's DeGrate brothers are well known (Jimmy specifically admires the song, "Can U Get Wit It", which DeVante Swing produced for Usher's first album). 'What we wanted to do was kinda bring back a little bit of the Jodeci sound for them,' he says. 'We were big Jodeci fans. I mean, obviously we like what they're doing on their own, but the Jodeci sound to me was really kinda gritty, gospelly, and we wanted to go back to that a little bit. When they walked into the studio and we played them the track (the old skool testimonial, "Never Say Never Again"), they instantly said, "Oh yeah, this is like some Jodeci stuff." And we said, "Yeah . . . , is it okay if we go in that direction?" And they said, "Oh yeah, that's the roots. We like that."'

But perhaps the best news for Jam and Lewis' own fans is that the two studio giants have been asked to craft more classic material for new albums from both Blige and the Haileys.

"How Stella Got Her Groove Back" is out through Universal.

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