Adolphus Frederic St. Sure
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Al B. Sure!
| For The Record... |
| Born Albert Joseph Brown, c. 1968, in Boston, MA; married wife, Jackie, 1993. Education: Attended Manhattan Center for the Performing Arts, 1986. Began writing and mixing music with Kyle West; collaborated with Heavy D and the Boyz, 1986-87; signed with Warner Bros. Records, 1987. Co-writer and co-producer of numerous tracks for several other performers, including Tevin Campbell and Al Green. Awards: Winner of Sony Innovator Talent Search, 1987; named best new artist by Soul Train, 1988; American Music Award for best new artist, 1988; New York Music Award for best male R&B vocalist, 1993. Addresses: Record company—Warner Bros. Records, 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505. Management—Phil Casey, International Creative Management, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211. |
Singer, songwriter
Self-confidence and style—even his name shows that Al B. Sure! possesses these qualities. Born Albert Joseph Brown, he moved with his parents from Boston, Massachusetts, to a comfortable New York City suburb, "money-earnin’" Mt. Vernon, while he was a student in grade school. By the age of ten, he had already worked as a singer in a video production for children called Sesame Place Park. After that, he never looked back: "I saved up a little bit of money, bought a 4-track [recorder] and some equipment, and started making music with my cousin Kyle West," Sure! told Bill Coleman in a Billboard magazine interview. (West is now a noted producer in his own right.)
After graduating from high school in 1986, Sure! moved to New York City and entered the Manhattan Center for the Performing Arts. He also started a collaboration with Heavy D and the Boyz, his old friends from Mt. Vernon, and was soon introduced to Andre Harrell of Uptown Records. Harrell sent Sure!’s demo tape to Warner Bros., and the label signed the young singer-songwriter in the summer of 1987.
Warner then entered Sure! in thatyear’s Sony Innovator Talent Search. Music industry magnates Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock were the judges of the competition and picked Sure! as the winner in a field of 51 aspiring artists. Their recognition left him "very surprised and very honored," he told Coleman. "To have Jones pick me is kind of amazing to me. It’s kind of a dream."
Sure!’s first single, "Nite and Day," was released in January of 1988. By April it was on Billboard’s Top Ten list, prompting Sure! to record French and Spanish versions as well. His first album, In Effect Mode, was released later that year and swiftly went platinum. By September of 1988, Davitt Sigerson of Rolling Stone was calling Al B. Sure! the best of the "hip-hop love men," describing him as a modern crossover artist who blends rap’s pulsing beat with jazzy romantic crooning. "Nite and Day" won over even the toughest critics, like J. D. Considine of Musician, who allowed that the single had "insinuating appeal," but disparagingly called Sure! a "hip-hop Barry White."
In early 1989, Sure!’s career hit the kind of snag that could have ruined him: he was charged with rape in Los Angeles. Although he was cleared of the charges by April, Nelson George, writing in Billboard, wondered whether Sure! could recover his carefully wrought image: "Although the media worked during the last year to turn the 20-year-old vocalist into a sex symbol, it’s not surprising that it loved the idea of connecting him to a sex scandal. That the story proved groundless, unfortunately, isn’t as sexy."
By June of 1989, Sure!’s "If I’m Not Your Lover" had critics gushing with praise. Within 16 months, the single "Misunderstanding" (co-produced by Eddie F. of Heavy D and the Boyz), from Sure!’s second album, Private Times … and the Whole Nine, was a Number One R&B hit. As the singer told Janine McAdams in Billboard, "I think when people hear the album they’ll see that this is very much my growth process from album one [In Effect Mode] to album two.… It’s nothing like album one and has nothing to do with album one."
Sure!’s second album clearly reflects his growing confidence as an artist, as in his duet with Diana Ross on "No Matter What You Do," a song he had written when he was a junior in high school. And his covers of the Eagles’ "Hotel California," which begin and end the album, intrigued many listeners, including Amy Linden of Rolling Stone. In her review of Private Times, she called the "Hotel California" remake a "creepy combination of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and Dark Shadows," that demonstrates "an element of risk absent from the rest of the LP."
By this time, however, Sure! was seriously developing his longstanding interest in producing music. He had already co-written and co-produced three tracks with DeVante Swing of the group Jodeci and by 1993 had done similar work with artists like Tevin Campbell, Chaka Khan, Robert Palmer, Michael McDonald, Rod Stewart, and Al Green.
Sure! was also planning to start his own label, Suretime Records. In late 1992, Sure! released his third album, Sexy Versus, another mixture of slow romantic cuts and high-speed hip-hop, featuring Grand Puba, Slick Rick, Rakim, and Chubb Rock (who had also appeared on Private Times). Sure! described the album to Jennifer Perry of the Source as "adult contemporary hip-hop" and told EM magazine that it "cover[s] every aspect of what love is, from promiscuity to shyness to anger to infatuation to teasing games. The whole thing." He even underscores the importance of safe sex in his romantic ballad "You and I," explaining to EM: "No matter how hot the moment of passion is, you still have to take care of your business."
Again, Sure!’s brand of bedroom hip-hop met with mixed critical response, though in January of 1993 he was voted best male R&B vocalist at the New York Music Awards. This honor confirmed Al B. Sure!, who planned to release a new album late in 1994, as a consummate "modern musician," equally skilled at his own craft and at bringing the best out of other artists. His fresh, sexy sound has popularized a new kind of hip-hop—one that is mellower, with as much emphasis on melody as beat. As Sure! told McAdams: "It was something that I’ve always kind of felt naturally. If you have [a] melody and you’re really saying something in the song, you can’t lose."
Selected discography
In Effect Mode, Warner Bros., 1988.
Private Times … and the Whole Nine, Warner Bros., 1990.
Sexy Versus, Warner Bros., 1992.
Sources
Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 2, 1993.
Billboard, March 26, 1988; April 30, 1988; April 1, 1989; December 1, 1990; September 21, 1991.
Call & Post (Cleveland, OH), March 4, 1993.
Cash Box, November 10, 1990.
Chicago Defender, February 28, 1994.
EM, January 1993.
Fresh, April 25, 1993.
Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, GA), January 28, 1993.
Musician, July 1988.
Melody Maker, June 10, 1989.
Rolling Stone, September 22, 1988; January 24, 1991.
Source, December 1992.
Spin, January 1993.
Additional information for this profile was obtained from Warner Bros. Records publicity materials.
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Adolphus Frederic St. Sure
Adolphus Frederic St. Sure (March 9, 1869 – February 5, 1949) was an American judge. He served as a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for 22 years, until June 30, 1947, although he was eligible for retirement in 1939.
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History
Born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he came to California with his parents when six months old. Judge A. F. St. Sure’s father, Franklin Adolph St. Sure, came to California with his wife Ellen Donohue St. Sure as a merchant late in 1869. Franklin was a Confederate veteran who settled his family in Oroville, California, where he ran a shop as a druggist catering to the area gold dredging miners. Judge St. Sure’s uncle, Charles Washington St. Sure settled in Oroville as well. Judge St. Sure was thrown into the role as head of the family when his father died in a mysterious drowning. Family circumstances forced young A.F. St. Sure to quit school at 13 to help his mother support the family. His first job was as a printer's devil at the Oroville Mercury. St. Sure moved to Alameda, California in 1891. He later worked as a reporter at the San Francisco Examiner, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
St. Sure entered politics by chance. He lived in Alameda and was nominated for Justice of the Peace by some friends almost as a prank. He ran as a conservative Democrat in a Republican community and lost. Later when the recorder of Alameda County died, St. Sure was appointed to the post. He served in that position from 1893-1899. St. Sure did not have a high school education. Realizing a need to educate himself, he began to 'read' the law; in essence earning a self-taught legal education. In 1895 he was admitted to the California Bar.
Later, he was counsel for the Southern Pacific Railroad in the East Bay. St. Sure joined the firm of Tirey L. Ford in San Francisco. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake he moved his practice to Oakland. Under the tutelage of prominent Bay Area Republican politician Joseph R. Knowland, he eventually joined the Republican party.[1]
Judiciary
In 1915, St. Sure was named Alameda City Attorney and developed the community's first City Manager Charter. He held this post until 1918 when he was elected to a six-year term as a Judge of the Superior Court of Alameda County. He resigned the superior court post on his appointment by Governor William D. Stephens as an Associate Justice of the California Courts of Appeal, for the First District on January 4, 1923. Then, two years later he was appointed to the Federal bench by President Calvin Coolidge. He was confirmed by the Senate, and received his commission on February 23, 1925. St. Sure assumed senior status on June 30, 1947.[2]
Upholding the dignity of the court became an obsession with St. Sure, but at the same time, his sense of humor frequently broke loose.
Judge St. Sure insisted during his early days on the bench that women be permitted to sit on Federal juries, explaining he “had two years’ experience with women jurors when I was on the superior court bench in Alameda County and found them conscientious, independent, highly intelligent, and willing to serve”.[3] The barrier banning women jurors in Federal Courts was lifted in 1939.
- Cases
In 1939, Lettuce workers in Salinas, California were blacklisted by employers for their union activities. Attorneys provided by the ILWU brought action and St. Sure, in the first instance of its kind, issued an injunction holding blacklisting to be illegal.[4]
St. Sure was the Federal Judge who signed the order giving the United States Navy title to Treasure Island, California after it formally served notice of its unilateral 'declaration' taking ownership on April 17, 1942.[5]
On September 8, 1942, the case of Fred Korematsu, a United States citizen of Japanese ancestry who had evaded authorities to avoid 'Japanese internment', was heard before Judge A. F. St. Sure in San Francisco.[6][7] Korematsu's conviction was eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court and on December 18, 1944, the Court issued its landmark Korematsu v. United States decision.
Twenty years later, after letting it be known he had no intention of retiring on his full $10,000-a-year salary, Judge St. Sure had the distinction at the time of having served longer than any other Federal Judge in Northern California.
Close
Judge St. Sure died February 5, 1949 and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery at Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California.
He was survived by his wife, the former Ida Laura Pettes, whom he married in Alameda in 1897, and two sons, J. Paul St. Sure, an Oakland Attorney and President of the Pacific Maritime Association. His son, William P. St. Sure, a Public Relations Consultant, predeceased him. Judge and Mrs. St. Sure had resided at 492 Straten Avenue in Oakland.
Judge St. Sure was also survived by a brother, Dr. Franklin Augustus St. Sure[8] (born April 25, 1874, at Oroville, California, died June 22, 1948, at Hamakuapoko, Maui) a physician.
Family background
Judge St. Sure was the grandson of Adolph Fredrik St. Sure Von Lindsfelt, MD[9][10], sometimes spelled "Adolf" "Frederik" "Saint Sure" and "Lindsfeldt" in various sources, who was born May 8, 1806, died May 19, 1887, and who himself led a storied life. He was a former Swedish Army Officer and Chamberlain to the Court of King Charles XIV John (Karl XIV Johan) who had fled Sweden to avoid the judgment of a bankruptcy Court. As a young man, he was apparently in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars.
He adopted the name 'St. Cyr', later anglicized to 'St. Sure'. This is in possible reference to Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr (1764–1830), Marshal of France, whom he admired or perhaps claimed lineage from. His also gave his sons middle names of other famous generals (e.g. Washington, Bolivar), Lindsfelt came to America as an early settler of the Pine Lake Settlement known as 'Nya Upsala' (New Upsala), in Wisconsin, founded by Gustaf Unonius.[11] Lindsfelt later studied at Rush Medical College in Chicago and became a medical doctor and a Civil War surgeon in the Union’s 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment.[12] He was a purveyor of his own patent medicine. His first of three wives came to America with him; Elisabet Concordia C. von Krassow was the daughter of cavalry captain Carl Vilhelm von Krassow, and Baroness Gustava Eleonora Leijonsköld, and was a member of a noble family originally from Pomerania and Mecklenburg. They were married on May 25, 1835 at Nya Skottorp in Skummeslova, Sweden.
The Von Krassow family is listed at numbers 157 and 315 of the Baronial families (Friherrliga ätter) on a List of Swedish noble families. Another list has the name listed under untitled noble family (Adliga Ätten).[13] The Leijonsköld's are listed at number 53.
External links
- Montie Derby's St. Sure genealogy website
- Guide to the St. Sure Family Papers at The Bancroft Library
References
- ^ "Thirty Years of Collective Bargaining Joseph Paul St. Sure: Management Labor Negotiator 1902 - 1966" Thesis. Jennifer Marie Winter [1]
- ^ Judges of the United States Courts
- ^ "Death Takes St. Sure" (February 5, 1949), San Francisco Chronicle pp. ___
- ^ The ILWU Story - The Warehouse Industry
- ^ "Treasure Isle Goes to Navy" (April 17, 1942) San Francisco News
- ^ P.O.V. - Rabbit in the Moon | PBS
- ^ Chronology
- ^ Franklin August St. Sure
- ^ 15th Wisconsin, Profile of Adolph Fredrik Saint Sure Von Lindsfelt of Field & Staff
- ^ 15th Wisconsin, Soldier Profiles, Last Names Beginning with J, K, or L
- ^ http://linkstothepast.com/waukesha/pinelakebios.php#stsure
- ^ 15th Wisconsin Infantry Home Page
- ^ http://www.geocities.com/svenskadel/ Swedish aristocracy. Archived 2009-10-24.
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