# 1901   Anita Baker -                                                   SAME OLE LOVE (365 DAYS A YEAR)

Rapture, Elektra Records, 1987                BILLBOARD CHART ACHIEVEMENTS:                           Adult Contemporary:  # 6                               Black Singles:  # 8                             Hot 100 Singles:  # 44                          Top 20 at  MATT RADIO

Anita Baker's velvety alto helped spark the "quiet storm" movement in music in the '80s and early '90s.  Her songs "Sweet Love" and "Caught Up In The Rapture" showed off a languorous, jazzy voice that formed the romantic soundtrack for innumerable late nights.  But after several hit albums, marriage to developer Walter Bridgforth Jr., and blissful happiness following the birth of two sons, Baker simply disappeared off the public radar and sought the comfort of family in her home in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.
 
"Where's Anita?" has been the cry from music fans in the years since releasing her last studio album in 1994.  Well, on Thursday morning, she was at WJBK-TV (Fox 2), where she was promoting a fund-raiser tonight at the Detroit Renaissance Marriott for her home church, Hartford Memorial Baptist.

To the question of what she's been up to for the past eight years, Baker, still the trim, pocket-sized diva dressed in a camel-haired blazer and black turtleneck sweater, tossed her head with laughter.

"I have been at Hartford with my pastor, at home in my kitchen, bringing everybody to soccer, and doing the mommy thing. Singing?  Mostly singing in the kitchen."

The singer seemed to revel in the effusive reception she got from the Fox TV2 crew, as she and Hartford Memorial's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Charles Adams, chatted with morning host Alan Lee.
 
The black-tie gala will raise money for a youth center in Detroit and celebrate the church's 85th anniversary.
 
"Hartford is a place where I can go to and lay my burdens down," Baker says.  "And people will know what I mean by that. That's important to a community.  It's not just going to church every week; this is about service."

Apart from a benefit for former Detroit police chief Benny Napoleon that she did four months ago, Baker hasn't performed in public for five years, she says.  She'll be using Keith Ferguson's band for her performance tonight, as well as local group the Ridgeways on background vocals.
 
Her commitment to Hartford Baptist is not a recent one.  "I remember walking hand-in-hand with my mother, looking up at the church as we walked in," she says.  That was back when Hartford Memorial was on Hartford Avenue, two blocks from West Grand Boulevard.

"My mother belonged to the August birthmonth club," Baker says.  "They'd do fund-raisers for the church in August, so she would grab me up and we'd go to the lower level of the church, where they'd serve dinner to more than 5,000 people.  That's where I learned my people skills.  I'd set the place mats and greet people as they came in.  These are things we take for granted, but it helps a child so much to participate on a social level."

The singer laughs.  "I grew with the job and after a while I looked forward to going.  I'd take pride in what I did there."
 
As a child, Baker was too shy to sing in such a big church, but she did sing in the school choir and was chosen to lead.
"That got me beat up," she says with a laugh.  "See, it's not always good to lead the choir."
 
The Rev. Adams wouldn't specify exactly where the proposed youth center will be -- he expects it will be completed in five to seven years -- but he did say "there is plenty of acreage for it."
 
"This will be a place where we can encourage physical health, mental health, financial and moral health," he says.  "Where children can get nutritious food, aerobic exercise, job creation; where they can learn good values, that there's a peaceful way to resolve differences, and that they can learn to like someone with whom they have differences."
 
"I'm a product of Hartford Baptist Church, and I think they did OK by me!" says Baker.  "The pastor speaks of providing a healthy environment for children -- they know how to provide that.  When I went to Hartford Baptist, I could see professionals at work."   Baker also praised Hartford's pioneering reputation.  It was the first African-American church on Detroit's west side, back in 1917.   "This church has been so progressive; they are so interactive with the community, so this center comes as no surprise to me," she says.

Hartford Memorial's Rev. Mangedwa C. Nyathi, who married Baker and her husband, says that the church's progressive tone was set by its second pastor, the Rev. Charles Andrew Hill.  United Auto Workers Local 600 was organized there because the Rev. Hill believed it was an important aid to black automotive workers.  "Ford offered free coal to churches that didn't support the UAW," says Rev. Nyathi.  "Hartford Memorial refused the coal."

The appearance tonight will not be Baker's only step into the public spotlight.  She also has a concert engagement planned for Dec. 17 and 18 at the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island, N.Y.  Does this signal a return to a series of live concerts?

"You have to understand, I'll be 45 in January," Baker says.  "I've spent the past eight years raising my children.  These shows will tell the tale, whether or not I can do both things."
 
Baker did lament that she hadn't made her sons -- Walter, 9, and Edward, 8 -- breakfast that morning because she was walking up and down the aisles of Fox 2, promoting the Hartford benefit.  "And I didn't like that."

But the gushing reception she got from everybody she encountered at the television station Thursday clearly made an impression. "One of the crew members told me, 'You need to write some songs.'  I said, "Sweetie, I've got two little boys.  My life has changed -- I'm a mommy.'  I want to do it.  I love it."

But "I need you guys," she said of her fans.
  
When she is reminded that Sarah Vaughan did both, Baker, who was on her way out of the studio's green room, wheeled around and came back at the mention of one of her heroines.  "You are a product of your environment, and when I grew up Sarah Vaughan was always on the record player, these divas in their fabulous gowns," she says dreamily.  "Her daughter was named Paris, wasn't she?  You know, had anyone told me ten years ago that anyone or anything could take the place of my music, I'd say impossible.  But they (her sons) are more important -- and that's a good thing."
 
What clearly has discouraged Baker is the strange flux that the music business seems caught up in, where music today is largely aimed at teenagers.  Softcore R&B like Baker's is now called "old school" and is played as a fallback by radio stations trying to distance themselves from rap.
 
"The music business is more complicated than it ever was," Baker says.  "The music men who used to sit at the helm of the record companies... most of them aren't there anymore.  A few of them are.  If I return to recording, I'll go with one of those music men who are left."

For now, Baker seems to revel in returning to the stage tonight.  "There'll be performing, singing, pretty gowns and dinner!" she said.  "This is going to be an annual event.  We want people to look out for this every year, and word will get out about how much fun it was.  People spend $125 for a pair of shoes, and then they look at their shoes and say, 'Jeez, I wish I could help the community in some way.'  Well, you can.  Set aside the money and buy a ticket!"


source:  Susan Whitall, The Detroit News, Nov. 22, 2002