Trevor Nelson - 12/08/2009

Trevor's Album Of The Week is Patrice Rushen's Straight From The Heart (1982). An early-80s jazz-pop-R&B synthesis as durable and pleasing as any other, Straight From The Heart was Patrice Rushen's most successful album, at least from a sales standpoint: it peaked at number 14 on the pop chart, 25 slots higher than 1980's Pizzazz. Still working with a core group of associates that went back to her earlier Elektra albums, the material here is as slick as ever, but not at the expense of lighter rhythms or less memorable melodies. Much of the album's popularity can be attributed to the club hit Forget Me Nots. Rushen's best-known single is a breezy, buoyant mixture of handclaps, fingersnaps, twisting bass, and Rushen's typically blissful (and not overplayed) electric piano; not to mention the incorporation of a bad bass-and-percussion breakdown.