For Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast, he and Celine Dion contributed the title song, a number nine pop hit.
"Can You Stop the Rain" itself became Bryson's first Grammy-nominated recording.
In 1991, after Bryson signed with Columbia, Can You Stop the Rain and its title track topped the R&B album and singles charts. At the end of the decade, Bryson briefly returned to Capitol and topped the R&B chart with a cover of "Show & Tell," popularized by Al Wilson.ĭuring the first few years of the '90s, the singer racked up one achievement after another. This phase was highlighted by the soaring ballad "If Ever You're in My Arms," a 1984 single that reached number ten on the pop chart, went number six R&B, and topped the adult contemporary chart. No momentum was lost in a switch from Capitol to Elektra, his home for the next few years. Bryson had gradually attained a broad audience by crossing over from black radio quiet storm playlists to syndicated pop countdown programs.
The biggest single off the latter was "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love," the first of Bryson's four Top 20 pop hits. Bryson worked so well in tandem that he recorded 1979's We're the Best of Friends with Natalie Cole, and with Roberta Flack made 1980's Live & More and 1983's Born to Love. The first two LPs, Reaching for the Sky and Crosswinds, were released in 1978, promoted with several major R&B hits including the title tracks, "Feel the Fire," and "I'm So into You," and eventually went gold. Bryson resumed solo output via another Bang sublabel, Bullet, with the 1976 album Peabo, the source of three A-sides that narrowly missed the Top 20 of the R&B chart.īryson left Bang for Capitol, where he flourished throughout a six-year period that entailed eight studio albums, most of which were Top Ten R&B hits. In 1975, he debuted on Shout! as a solo artist with the uptempo Buzz Cason composition "Disco Queen," and was featured on the Bang-issued Top 30 R&B single "Do It with Feeling," a comparatively funky number written by Paul Davis and Michael Zager for the latter's Moon Band. Later in the decade, Peabo Bryson made his recorded debut on Now!, a self-released album by Moses Dillard & the Tex-Town Display, featuring his powerful lead turns on "Cry Like a Baby" and "Bring Your Dreams to Me." Dillard, Bryson, and company moved on to cut early-'70s singles for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label, and then for Bang subsidiary Shout!, including the Dillard-Bryson composition "I Promise to Love You." Soon thereafter, Bryson himself signed to Bang as a songwriter, producer, and arranger. The second leader had similar trouble, prompting Bryson to use Peabo as his stage name. The first singer he supported couldn't pronounce "Peapo" and consequently referred to him as "Little Willie". Since then, Bryson has recorded with less frequency, but has added to his list of achievements with multiple Grammy nominations via his 1999 album Unconditional Love, and a collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on the 2018 release Stand for Love.īorn Robert Peapo Bryson in Greenville, South Carolina, Bryson started singing backup as a young teenager in the mid-'60s. The feat was repeated the following year when "A Whole New World" took the same category. That same month, Bryson was handed his first Grammy for his and Celine Dion's "Beauty and the Beast," awarded Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The Regina Belle duet "A Whole New World" was at the top of the first two, while Kenny G's Breathless and the studio cast recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I respectively topped the latter pair. At one point in February 1993, he could be heard on recordings that were simultaneously number one on the pop and adult contemporary singles charts, as well as on the contemporary jazz and classical crossover album charts. Bryson continued to scale rare heights throughout the '80s and peaked the next decade. Peabo Bryson might be known most as a top-tier adult contemporary balladeer, but when he scored his first Top 20 pop single in 1983 with the Roberta Flack collaboration "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love," the soul-rooted tenor was firmly established with 24 entries on the R&B chart.
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