UB Soul Friday: Celebrating the Distinctive Jeffrey Osborne

This weeks “UB Soul Friday” celebrates a legendary artist with a rich, deep, emotional voice, Jeffrey Osborne.

This year is the 35th Anniversary of his album release “Only Human.”

“UB Soul Friday,” spotlighting artists, albums, singles and videos that left a mark in R&B and Soul music!

Jeffrey Osborne is the youngest of 12 children and was constantly bombarded with music as he was growing up.

Jeffrey had five brothers and six sisters, some of whom went on to have music careers.

His father, Clarence “Legs” Osborne, was a popular trumpeter who played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, and died when Jeffrey was only 13.

His mother, Wanita, is ancestored by a Pequot Indian sachem.

His oldest brother, Clay Osborne, a singer and pianist, and Billy, another brother, is a songwriter and producer in Los Angeles.

But Jeffrey Osborne‘s father had the greatest influence on his musical career; Clarence “Legs” Osborne turned down many top band offers during his career to be with his family.

At the age of 15, he sat in with the O’Jays when the drummer was too tired to play, and went on to play with them for two weeks.

It was only after receiving his mother’s encouragement that Jeffrey left for Los Angeles.

Fortune was really cheesing the day a scuffling R&B band in 1969 called Love Men Ltd., when they decided to hire a local 21-year-old drummer after a gig in Providence, Rhode Island.

That cat was Jeffrey Osborne and soon after he stepped out from behind the kit after being asked if he could “sing a little,” he became the group’s ticket to stardom as the thankfully renamed L.T.D., as in Love, Togetherness, Devotion.

From that moment, L.T.D. led the pack of smooth ‘70s California Soulsters with a slew of Top 10 R&B hits.

Through the years from 1976 to 1981, encompassing the Osborne Era and beyond with three #1 R&B smashes.

Included is the lush “Love Ballad,” a #1 R&B/#20 pop hit from the group’s third album, “Love To The World,” which was their first to showcase Osborne as lead singer.

His rich, deep, emotional voice soon graced some of L.T.D.’s most popular songs.

Its success led to 1977’s gold “Something To Love,” with the gold #1 R&B/#4 pop “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again,” the Top 10 R&B “Never Get Enough Of Your Love” and “We Party Hearty,” with its hooky chant (“When we boogie/We boogie oogie”) and beats which have been sampled, looped and reprogrammed by scores of hip-hop studio wizards.

“Togetherness” in 1978 went platinum thanks to the #1 R&B “Holding On (When Love Is Gone)” and Top 20 “We Both Deserve Each Other’s Love.”

The gold “Devotion” followed in 1979 with the Top 20 R&B ballad “Stranger” and the rump-shaker “Danc ‘N’ Sing ‘N’.”

In 1980, “Shine On” proved to be Jeffrey Osborne’s swan song as he then exited for what would be a tremendous solo career after the Top 20 R&B/Top 40 pop title track and “Where Did We Go Wrong,” the group’s final R&B Top 10.

Later singles included “Kickin’ Back” and “April Love” from 1981’s “Love Magic” but L.T.D. itself had soon disbanded.

“It’s like a dream come true, something I’m sure every lead singer in a band must think about doing at some point in his career. You can believe that it’s a great feeling.”

Those words are just one way Jeffrey Osborne described life as a solo musical entity.

Embarking on a solo career, Jeffrey Osborne then scored early and often with more than 20 more chart hits.

According to R&R, Jeffrey Osborne was the top urban contemporary artist from 1982-1988, second only to Michael Jackson in total number of Top 5 records for that period (10 for Osborne, 11 for Jackson).

His shimmering self-titled debut album for A&M, was an ambitious project that virtually insured him a special place among pop music’s leading male vocalists.

“It was a natural evolution,” Jeffrey Osborne stated of his departure from the band. “I can never repay those nine individuals for what I learned while I was with them, but it came to a point where I couldn’t grow. I had to advance, and leaving the band was the only way I could do it.”

Once free, he began sifting through the various contract offers. Many of them were inviting, but none totally fit the standards he had set for his career as a solo artist. “The problem,” he said, “was that no one recognized me as an individual. Record companies were telling me that after being with such a large band, my marketability was almost nil.”

A&M, who’d witnessed Jeffrey Osborne‘s ability firsthand with L.T.D., saw things differently.

They pitched him a deal and a year of in-depth negotiations later, Jeffrey Osborne had re-signed with the label, his professional musical base since 1973, when L.T.D. came to A&M.

Jeffrey Osborne began nurturing his considerable vocal chops early on as a child in his native Providence, Rhode Island, where he used to listen to the likes of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Sarah Vaughan.

However, as the son of a trumpet player, he was more interested in mastering an instrument than his voice (after all, his brother Billy, who would also become a member of L.T.D., could hold his own on piano and organ), and took on the drums.

In fact, it wasn’t until long after Jeffrey Osborne joined L.T.D. that the band discovered he could sing, and put him out front.

As the band’s vocal centerpiece and one of its key songwriters, Jeffrey Osborne led L.T.D. through such hits as “Love Ballad,” “Back In Love” and “Shine On,” among other gold and platinum successes.

He initially made the decision to leave the group in 1979, but in the interest of the band, stayed on until 1981, after their “Shine On” release.

Jeffrey Osborne was stringent in setting the criteria for the producer of his first album.

Enter George Duke, who in addition to producing a string of chart records for himself and artists like Seawind, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Raul De Soza, supplied A Tast Of Honey with a million-selling #1 pop single with his revitalizing production of “Sukiyaki” and teamed with bassist Stanley Clarke as the Clarke/Duke Project to come up with the ballad “Sweet Baby,” which reached the Top 10 on pop charts.

Jeffrey Osborne says he knew Duke was the man for the job from their very first meeting. “More than anything, I wanted the opportunity to record some of my songs the way I heard them in my head, as opposed to someone re-working the material,” stated Jeffrey Osborne. “George was willing to listen to my ideas and views. Actually, he ended up giving me as much control as I would have had producing the record on my own.”

From there, Jeffrey Osborne and Duke went into Duke’s Hollywood home studio with first-string sessioneers, like Louis Johnson, Tony Maiden, Steve Ferrone, David “Hawk” Wolinski and Mike Sembello and emerged with Jeffrey Osborne, a state-of-the-art ten-song production–eight of them written or co-written by Osborne-that is as commercially accessible as it is musically substantial.

The album covered all bases: From the mid-tempo sway of “Eenie Meenie“, to the raucous “Who You Talking To” and “Ready For Your Love.”

And then there are the tracks “Congratulations” and “Wings Of Love,” two sparkling exercises in the art of pop balladry, but most of all, there is the overwhelming presence of Osborne himself.

During “Jeffrey Osborne,” his vocals soar over these tracks with the power and grace of an eagle.

The consummate vocalist, Jeffrey Osborne makes all of this work sound easy. “This album is probably one of the finest things I’ve ever done,” Jeffrey Osborne stated “I could feel myself singing a lot better- a lot cleaner. And the songs here are not just grooves, they’re melodic, structured songs. I’m totally satisfied with the results.”

In 1983 he released “Stay With Me Tonight,” which featured the hits “Don’t You Get So Mad” (at #25) and the album title track (which reached #11 in 1984), along with the dancer “Plane Love.”

A year later he released “Don’t Stop,” which contained the track “The Borderlines.”

In 1985, he wrote the lyrics to the Whitney Houston song “All at Once” and appeared on U.S.A. for Africa‘s fundraiser, “We Are the World” in 1985.

In 1986 he released the album “Emotional,” which contained one of his biggest hits, namely “You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song),” (reaching #13 that year).

“Emotional” also contained the powerful anti-apartheid epic “Soweto,” which was remixed and was hugely popular on the dance floors.

“Being away, Actually, I didn’t go anywhere, I just spent a great deal of time touring. It usually takes me about 18 months to do an LP anyway. This time it took just a little longer because I had a 24-track studio constructed in my home and I wanted to wait until it was finished so that I could do the new LP there. It was definitely worth holding out to be able to do that because I got a lot more freedom in recording the LP there. I could say when I was ready to do a vocal rather than having to do it no matter how I felt on a particular day, simply because studio time had been booked.”

With crossing over “Personally, I feel that there shouldn’t be any Black music or pop departments at record companies. I see no reason why it’s set up like that because music is music. What’s so contradictory is that I’ve had records that are so R&B, I’m told they can’t cross and yet Steve Win wood can put out something that sounds like an old Junior Walker track and he gets play everywhere.”

With “Emotional” “My main focus was in choosing songs that could be singles. I co-wrote a number of the songs and I had the songwriters co-produce with me, including Robert Brookins, Freddie Washington, Hawk Wolinski, Bruce Roberts & Andy Goldmark, and Ross VaneIli. I learned a great deal being the overall producer. I had to deal with al aspects, including the budget, but I was ready to take on that level of responsibility.”

Jeffrey Osborne returned to the charts in 1987 with “Love Power,” his duet with Dionne Warwick.

By 1988 Jeffrey was to release his final album for the A&M imprint entitled “One Love – One Dream,” which featured the song “She’s On The Left.”

Two years later, Jeffrey had signed with Arista for “Only Human,” which featured the song “If My Brother’s In Trouble.”

The album will celebrate it’s 35th Anniversary this year, originally released November 20th, 1990. The album reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

The 2000 album “That’s for Sure” featured the single “Come With Me,” with former Rufus lead guitarist Tony Maiden.

In 2003 Jeffrey released the album “Rest of Our Lives,” which reached #75 on the Billboard R&B chart.

2005‘s “Yes I’m Ready” reached further, by landing at #64 on the Billboard chart.

In 2008, Jeffrey Osborne sang the national anthem before game 4 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center in Los Angeles, repeated in 2009 before game 1 of the 2009 NBA Finals, and also again in 2010 before game 1 of the NBA Finals.

In 2012, he founded The Jeffrey Osborne Foundation and the Jeffrey Osborne Celebrity Classic.

Jeffrey’s “Worth It All“, was released in June 2018 on Artistry Music.

Written and produced by Jeffrey Osborne, with the exception of one song entitled “Work It” which was co-written with his son Jeffrey Osborne Jr. who also performed on the track with him.

The project was inspired by the late great George Duke. The title cut reached the Top 30 Billboard Urban Adult Contemporary Singles chart.

Black Music Honors honored Jeffrey Osborne with the “Legends Award” in 2023.

In 2024 Jeffrey Osborne was inducted into National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, held in Cleveland, OH.

Jeffrey‘s solo career has earned him four Grammy Award nominations, and five gold and platinum albums,

Followed by the independent releases; “That’s for Sure” (2000) and “Music Is Life” (2003), as well as cover albums “From the Soul” (2005) and “A Time for Love” (2013).

Jeffrey Osborne continues to tour, to sold-out shows.

This year, Jeffrey Osborne loss his wife of 42 years Sheri Osborne.

Whether on up-tempo grooves or seductive ballads, Jeffrey Osborne echoed the tradition of Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass but added his own unique touch of soulful elegance and grace.

Rich yet understated, impassioned but sophisticated, Jeffrey Osborne wrapped his voice around a lyric and caressed it or finessed it until every last drop of emotion poured out onto the listener’s heart and touched their soul.

As if that weren’t enough, his voice apparently produced some sort of chemical reaction–when hearing a Jeffrey Osborne song, thoughts immediately turned to romance, physical intimacy and good old-fashioned grooving.

Take A Trip Down Memory Lane on Soul Friday with Jeffrey Osborne!