Five Years Later: Remembering Teena Marie

My first memories of Teena Marie were hearing “Behind the Groove,” “I Need Your Lovin’’’ and “Square Biz” as a kid in New York City. It was the time of turntables and ghetto blasters unleashing sounds through open windows and on city streets. The age of MTV and BET was just beginning so I didn’t see Teena Marie until “Lovergirl” was a smash hit in 1985. My small television made her look larger than life.

Then, I met her in 1988.

She was promoting her album Naked to the World with an in-store appearance at Tower Records at 66th Street in Manhattan. I waited in line to see the glamorous Lady Tee depicted on the cover of her single “Ooo La La La,” which I held in my hand for her to autograph. When I finally got to the front of the line, I was astonished to see a petite white light of a lady with fiery red hair, dressed in white and adorned with blue tinted sunglasses.

Teena graciously signed my 45. As she did, I nervously said something to the effect of “I want to work in the music business.” “Well, then,” said Lady Tee, “You need to talk to Laverne Perry at Epic Records.” (Lady Tee’s exhortation must have had a magical effect on my young mind because I ended up doing both. I worked in the music business and I talked to LaVerne Perry. And when I recounted my Teena Marie moment to LaVerne Perry in 1996, she gave me a big smile and a gracious hug).

Flash forward to 2009 and I learned Teena was releasing a new album, Congo Square. Through the help of some old friends from the music business, I interviewed Teena Marie in June 2009.

Although the interview had been scheduled by her publicist, my first phone call went to the answering machine. I gave it a few minutes and called back. This time, Teena Marie answered the call. There was a scheduling mixup and she wasn’t expecting to be interviewed. She was getting ready to go to an appointment but she graciously agreed to speak with me nonetheless. At the end of the half hour conversation she said “I’m sorry when you called I was a little off guard…I’m glad we were able to do [the interview].”

Of course, I was glad, too. We talked about Congo Square, Motown, Prince, Rick James, Passion Play, Cash Money Records, John Lennon and the most important person in her life, her daughter, Alia Rose. Listening to her speak, I hadn’t realized she had been through so much in the ten years between 1994’s Passion Play and 2004’s La Dona. I listened as she recounted incidences of calamity (including experiencing seizures) and joy (including raising Alia Rose, who she called “a beautiful spirit.”). Her words expressed vitality and wisdom. She knew who she was and told me so: “a deeply kind and compassionate human being.”

So it was heartbreaking to hear on December 26, 2010 that Teena Marie had died in her sleep.

In the five years since her untimely passing, Universal Music has released First Class Love: Rare Tee, a compilation of her early demos, and an expanded edition of 1980’s Lady T. During this time, Sony has released expanded editions of Robbery, Emerald City, Starchild, and Naked to the World.

In 2013, Alia Rose guided the release of Beautiful, the album Teena had completed before her death (Teena had also approved the release of First Class Love in 2010).

First Class Love and Beautiful are perfect bookends to the work of a uniquely talented artist.

First Class Love captures Berry Gordy’s multiple attempts to find the right combination of songwriters, musicians and producers to unlock the talent he recognized in Teena when he first signed her to Motown in 1975. The power of Teena’s distinctive voice is evident from the first note she sings on the eight acoustic tracks she recorded with Gordy in 1976.

These demos also showcase the natural strength of her songwriting. Of these songs, “First Class Love” would go through several recordings before being included on 1980’s Irons in the Fire and “God Has Created” would emerge as a duet with Smokey Robinson on 2006’s Sapphire. “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me, “Wasn’t I Good to You,” and “Why Can’t I Get Next to You” were also strong enough to be revisited on subsequent sessions in 1976 with producer Ronnie McNeir and in 1977 with producers Kenny Kerner and Rich Wise. “Why Can’t I Get Next to You” made it on to Teena’s second album, Lady T as did another song recorded during the Kerner and Wise sessions, “Co-Pilot to Pilot.”

“While Soul,” from sessions in 1976 with producer William Monseque, is an autobiographical funk ride through Teena’s early musical influences. On the song, she foreshadows her pioneering rap on “Square Biz” by recalling how she’d been called “Casper the Friendly Ghost” and calling herself “the hippest honky on the western coast.”

Thankfully, Gordy saw Teena’s promise and Teena had the patience for the process. The magic wouldn’t happen until Teena was paired with Rick James for her debut album Wild and Peaceful, released in 1979.

At the other end of the spectrum is Beautiful. Teena’s final album sounds as contemporary as anything out there today with a sophistication that shows she had a lot more to share with us. Like First Class Love, this album has some gems. One song,“Wild Horses,” was originally released on 1994’s Passion Play. During our conversation in 2009, I asked Teena if she planned to re-release Passion Play now that the Internet had made music distribution easier. “Actually, I was thinking about just a couple of songs on that album that are so amazing that I was thinking about re-recording them for my next record,” she said. “‘Wild Horses,’ maybe “Main Squeeze’…”. When I suggested she re-record “Pretty Man,” she said she had an even better song (“A Time to Paint”) ready for another project — “a spiritual album.”

That would have been an amazing album to hear. Still, remembering and listening to Teena Marie five years after her passing, I don’t feel a void and fans who miss her shouldn’t feel like she’s missing. As she says on “the Long Play” (on Beautiful), she’s “broadcasting to you from a heavenly station.” Instead of a voice silenced, Teena Marie’s body of work connects us with a voice eternal and a musical legacy we can still enjoy today.

“It’s been an amazing ride,” Teena said to me in 2009.

Thank you, Lady Tee, for letting us ride along and listen in on your incredible journey.

Eddie Santiago is the author of “The Revelation of Teena Marie” and Sly: the Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone. For more information, visit EddieSantiagoAuthor.com.