Lisa Stansfield appeared on the music scene late in 1989 with her first single All Around the World. The song, from her debut album Affection, was a worldwide mega-hit and an international #1 single. Although it did peak at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, it reached #1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart. In doing so, it was one of the rare singles at that time to break through the color-barrier that often separated soulful black and white artists.
Affection produced two more hit singles in the USA: You Can’t Deny It, which also peaked at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart and at #14 on the Hot 100, and This Is the Right Time, which peaked at #13 on the R&B chart and #21 on the Hot 100 in 1990. That same year, she received several awards, including the Brit Award and the Billboard Music Award. She was also nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Stansfield’s sophomore album, Real Love, was released in late 1991. The album produced an initial hit single in the USA, Change, which peaked at #12 on the Billboard R&B chart and #27 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, All Woman, topped the Billboard R&B chart, but stalled at a disappointing #56 on the Hot 100. The album itself peaked at #6 on the R&B chart and at #43 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, a big drop from the #9 peak of Affection in 1990. It was amazing at that time to see a British artist who was able to unite American audiences and make them musically “colorblind” in the category of soul music, much like Jimi Hendricks and Sly Stone had made Americans “colorblind” in the category of rock music. No genre of music should have a color-barrier.
Although Stansfield’s success across Europe was still hitting tremendous highs, it was obvious to her American record label, Arista, that she was fading across the States, despite her great success on the Billboard R&B charts. Her third album, So Natural, was released all across Europe, but was not released in the USA.
Her fourth album, Lisa Stansfield, was released worldwide, including the USA. Although the album did fairly well on the Billboard R&B Chart (#36) and the Billboard Top 200 (#55), the first single Never Gonna Give You Up peaked at #74 on the Hot 100. It did reach #1 on the Billboard Dance chart, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy Arista and no follow-up singles were released in the USA.
Despite Stansfield’s inability to match her initial success in the United States, she has remained popular throughout Europe to this very year– releasing four albums between 2001 and 2018: Face Up, The Moment, Seven and Deeper. All four albums were met with critical acclaim as well as successful sales figures.
In addition to the new album, Deeper, Stansfield performed a tour across Europe in 2018, and her first tour across the United States in 20 years. She obviously has no intentions of retiring any time soon. In fact, it’s been two years since her last album release, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new Lisa Stansfield album in the near future.
In terms of breaking the color-barrier between music genres, Stansfield, like Tina Marie, was one of the few white artists to find tremendous success on the R&B charts in the 20th Century. Other white artists of my generation to cross-over included Daryl Hall and John Oates, Bobby Caldwell (What You Won’t Do for Love), Player (Baby Come Back), and Madonna. Before my time, The Righteous Brothers were probably the most famous act to bridge the color-barrier between pop and soul music back in the 1960s. Fortunately today, there are many current hit-makers who cross-over to both genres and who have truly helped to make America more musically colorblind. I think that’s why music is truly the language of Love– it sees all people as equal and it makes us all feel equally blessed when we hear it.
Meditation to the Groove! 