UB Celebrates: 35th Anniversary of Anita Baker’s ‘Giving You the Best That I Got’

Anita Baker was born in Detroit, Michigan, always known as a musical hotbed, and started singing in church and later in groups throughout Detroit.

In 1979 she landed a gig on Chapter 8’s self-titled debut and the minor hit “I Just Wanna Be Your Girl.” Her early ’80s solo debut on Beverly Glenn contains some of her best work, including the classic “Angel.”

It was producer Michael J. Powell who created the Anita Baker sound so to speak, on her multi-platinum albums “Rapture” (1986), “Giving You the Best That I Got” (1988), and “Compositions” (1990).

Today marks the 35th Anniversary of one of those masterpieces, “Giving You the Best That I Got.” Originally released October 18th, 1988.

“The record company gave me the deadline a year and a half prior to the project, so the fact that I was late and had added pressure was my own fault,” Anita stated to Billboard. “After being on the road for almost two years with the Rapture tour, I was happy to be home. I kept procrastinating. We were supposed to deliver this album in July. But we didn’t deliver until September. I wish that I could say that I was waiting until the time was right. but I’d be lying! I didn’t have what I wanted … but had I started earlier, it would have been a different case. Once word got out that I was in the studio, material flooded in.”

To select the songs, Anita actually went over 200 — rejecting most of them. It was then that she realized she had to gain a fresh approach.

“I wanted to find songs that felt like ‘Watch Your Step’ or ‘You Bring Me Joy’. But you can’t find those type of songs every time you do an album. So I started getting away from the Rapture album and letting the merits of the new material come through.”

Although 15 songs eventually made it to tape, only eight made it to the album. Those eight, optimistic love songs reflecting a woman in love, differ from the majority of material on her first two albums.

“There wasn’t a conscious decision as to whether I was going to do a majority of positive as opposed to negative songs. There were some that spoke of long, lost love but they just didn’t hit me. I’m in a positive space. I’ve been engaged for 2 1/2 years and it hasn’t dwindled. It’s become stronger. Subconsciously that had something to do with it,” Anita stated.

“People say artists aren’t insecure. They think, ‘How can you sell five or ten million albums, win Grammys and be insecure?’ It’s not a question of feeling insecure about your past accomplishments. Those are results you can see. But can you do it again? Can you live up to all of the adjectives we tend to lean towards; words like best, better, and number one!”

“My grandfather was an itinerant minister, and every Sunday he’d preach at a different church,” Anita once recalled. “When I was about 12 I’d sing the A or B selection as part of his family presentation. At that time I was oblivious to jazz. All I knew was Motown and some Stax. I grew up four miles from Hitsville. I didn’t really get into jazz until I was in high school, when I started listening to WJZZ. The only problem was that after 9 [p.m.], they started playing fusion, and it used to make me crazy. I could not listen to fusion and go to sleep. I’d be too nervous. So when I was about 16, I was splitting my time between singing jazz for money and singing in my church choir. I was also listening to Rock and roll and every now and then tried to sing like Robert Plant.

At that age I had a wonderful range. My soprano then was much thicker than it used to be. I was a showoff, yes I was, which was what was beautiful about jazz, because I could show off singing it. I sure couldn’t show off at the church. Another thing I remember about that period was the influence Chaka Khan had in the ’70s. We were all Chaka clones then. I mean vocal cords were getting ripped up all over America by girls trying to imitate her voice.”

The “Giving You the Best That I Got” title track won the Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Song. Anita Baker also won Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female for both the song and album. The album also took three Soul Train Music Awards and made Billboard’s #1 album spot for December 24th, 1988 through January 20th, 1989.

The album was a huge success, selling over three million copies, not to mention eliciting a three-month tour with R&B legend Luther Vandross.

Other singles released “Just Because” reached #1 in the Billboard R&B charts and charted in the top ten in the pop charts. The third single, “Lead Me Into Love” reached #4.

Take A Trip Down Memory Lane with “Giving You the Best That I Got!”