rhythm and blues singer; composer; music arranger; producer
Personal Information
Born ca. 1973 in New York City; married Jeffrey Rolle; two children: Jeffrey Jr. and Jonia. Religion: Pentecostal.
Religion: Pentecostal.
Career
R&B vocalist, composer, arranger, producer. Sang gospel music with Darryl Douglas Workshop Co, early 1990s; with Darryl Douglas Workshop Co., sang backup for George Michael live performance, 1992; sang backup for vocalist Mariah Carey on recordings and on tour, 1992-96; appeared as backup vocalist and arranger on various recordings of Bad Boy label, mid-1990s; signed to T-Neck label, 1996; assistant music director, Puff Daddy and the Family tour of Sean "Puffy" Combs, 1997; released Soul of a Woman CD, 1998; recorded remake of Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way," 1999.
Life's Work
A musician of multifaceted creativity, Kelly Price bucked the trend of 1990s image consciousness when "Friend of Mine," the lead single of her debut album Soul of a Woman, rose to number one on R&B singles charts for an impressive five weeks. The song gained air play without video exposure, and Price, though well known in the music industry, was hardly a blip on the radar screen of the public mind. The success of Soul of a Woman rested on one thing: Price's musical talent. For the other entertainers who had long benefitted from Price's abilities as a songwriter, background vocalist, arranger, and producer, her emergence as a solo star could not have come as much of a surprise.
Kelly Price was born around 1973 in New York City, in the Jamaica neighborhood of the borough of Queens. She still lives there, and married her high school sweetheart, Jeffrey Rolle, who serves as her manager. Price grew up in a religious atmosphere, and the foundation of her musical education came from singing gospel music when she was young. Price's grandfather was a pastor, and her mother, who was musical director at the same Pentecostal church, imparted to Kelly not only a gift for singing, but also the charisma needed to deliver a dynamic performance.
Backed George Michael
During her teen years Price sang gospel with a group that was talented enough to work professionally, and this led to her own entry into the music business. This group, the Darryl Douglas Workshop Co., performed with British pop star George Michael in a 1992 Madison Square Garden performance of his gospel-inflected hit, "Faith," and there the group impressed rising vocal diva Mariah Carey. Carey invited the choir to perform on the MTV Unplugged cable television program, and after that performance asked Price and two other singers to work with her further. Any doubts the young singer might have had about a musical career were quickly dispelled: "When I got my first check, I was convinced," she told Jet. She sang backup on several Carey recordings in the early 1990s, including 1993's Music Box and 1995's Daydream, and toured with Carey for four years.
Price's voice remains clearly marked by gospel. Her soul-tinged vocals are often compared to those of Faith Evans, another backup singer who has emerged as a solo star, but Price has the deeper voice. "It's more chesty," Price herself pointed out to Billboard. Nevertheless, after she and Carey parted ways, Price moved in a new direction that was some distance from the world of gospel. Her multiple talents caught the attention of Bad Boy Records chief Sean "Puffy" Combs, whose shrewd marketing of the "gangsta" rap style culminated in an explosively successful solo release in 1997.
Price served as assistant music director for Combs's Puff Daddy and the Family tour, and her voice was a familiar presence on Bad Boy recordings of the period, including Combs's own. Her voice was prominently featured on a highly successful recording by the late Notorious B.I.G., "Mo Money, Mo Problems," and on Mase's "Feels So Good." An indication of Price's increasing versatility was that she took on arranging and production work for various artists, including Evans and the group SWV. She wrote songs for SWV and for the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.
Signed to Relaunched T-Neck Label
In 1996, Price also toured with the Isley Brothers, another legendary soul act of the 1960s. The Isleys had worked with Combs for a short time; at Combs's request, Price wrote lyrics for a remix of their hit "Floatin' on Your Love." Then they relaunched T-Neck, the label they had founded in 1969 and a pioneering organization in the annals of African American entrepreneurship. T-Neck president Ronald Isley heard in his new backup singer just the sound he was seeking for his reinvigorated label. "When I heard her, I knew how special she was," Isley told Billboard. "She had that 'voice.' In meeting Kelly right away I wanted to sign her. It was a gift to have her." He signed Price to the T-Neck label, and plans for her debut release began to take shape.
Given the chance to express herself as a solo artist, Price blossomed as a songwriter. "I can watch the news, and I don't even have to know the person, but if it touches me, I'll write about it," Price told Jet. "I think I was blessed to be not only sympathetic but empathetic, able to carry someone else's burdens, and the only way to get rid of it is to get it out creatively." When Price's Soul of a Woman album was released in June of 1998, eleven of its twelve tracks bore Price's name as writer or co-writer, and the album succeeded in part because she was able-to an unusual degree for a debut release by a young unknown-to stamp her own personality on it.
The lead single from Soul of a Woman, "Friend of Mine," expressed the lament of a woman who is shocked to discover that her best friend has stolen her lover away. The song sampled "Summer Breeze," the 1972 Seals and Crofts hit that had been covered by the Isley Brothers in 1974, but for the most part the album stayed away from hip-hop, stylistically. Another highlight of the album was the duet "Just One More Time," co-written and co-performed with the highly creative vocalist-composer-producer R. Kelly. The song marked the first time Kelly had co-written with anyone.
Won Soul Train Award
"Friend of Mine," in addition to its five weeks atop R&B charts, reached number nine on the pop singles chart, and in March of 1999, Soul of a Woman earned Price the Best New Rhythm-and-Blues/Soul Artist award on the televised Soul Train Music Awards show. Many new opportunities came her way: she co-wrote a duet with another giant talent of the 1990s, Gerald Levert, recorded a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way" for a soundtrack project, read over some film scripts that came her way, and began work on her second album. "My motto for the new millennium is, 'I'm just trying to have me a job,'" Price told Billboard. "I'll try my hand at a little bit of everything."
Price filed suit against T-Neck in 1999, claiming that no valid contract had existed between her and the label, but as of the summer of 1999 she remained affiliated with T-Neck. Outside the music arena, she launched her own clothing line aimed at full-figured women like herself. But her musical creativity seemed just to be getting in gear. Asked in an online Groove Planet interview who she would choose as a producer if she were two days from the end of human existence and had one day to complete her final work, Price answered, "I would do it myself because it would be an opportunity to give out everything I was feeling at that time. . . . It would be the purest form of Kelly Price because there would be no other entities involved."
Awards
Soul Train Music Award for Best New Rhythm-and-Blues/Soul Artist, 1999.
Works
Selected discography
- Soul of a Woman, T-Neck, 1998.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Billboard, May 30, 1998, p. 29; July 18, 1998, p. 94; February 27, 1999, p. 27; April 3, 1999, p. 38; June 26, 1999, p. 27.
- Essence, December 1998, p. 69.
- Jet, December 7, 1998, p. 64; July 24, 1999, p. 32.
- New York Times, September 12, 1999, late East Coast ed., sec 14LI, p. 3.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from http://www.allmusic.com; http://www.island.co.uk/news/news385.html; http://www.rockvillage.com/groove/artist/980910/5.html; and http://www.zyworld.com/theguide/kellyp.htm.
— James M. Manheim
