Kevin Goins Production & Media

MELBA MOORE – A LOT OF LOVE

A LOT OF LOVE was the fifth Capitol album from MELBA MOORE and the most successful long-player of her forty-five year career.  Released in 1986, A LOT OF LOVE came out at a time when Melba & then-husband Beau Huggins were seeing their company Hush Production take off thanks to a roster that included hit-makers Freddie Jackson and Meli’sa Morgan.  Melba herself scored two number-one soul hits released from the album – “A Little Bit More” (a duet with Freddie Jackson) & “Falling” – as well as a top five R&B single, “Love The One I’m With (A Lot Of Love)”.

To recap her resume, after she graduated with a music education degree from Montclair State College in New Jersey, the former Beatrice Melba Hill of New York City’s Harlem went from teaching music in Newark NJ’s public school system to a session singer back in the Big Apple.  She recorded one single for Musicor Records in 1966 – “Does Love Believe In Me” b/w “Don’t Cry – Sing Along With The Music” (her stage surname is a variation of her step-father’s name, Clement Moorman).  In addition, Melba, along with Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, was the “go-to” background vocal team for Mercury Records’ producer Jerry Ross. Check out Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny”, “I Dig You, Baby” by Jerry Butler and Jay & the Techniques’ “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” – Melba, Nick & Val can be heard loud and clear.  After she met playwright Jerome Ragni at a recording session, Melba was cast in the Broadway musical, “Hair” and went on to portray Lutiebell in “Purlie”, which earned her a Tony Award.  From that point on (1970), Melba was a busy woman – co-starring in a TV summer replacement series with actor/songwriter Clifton Davis (her then-boyfriend), recording dance/R&B hits on Mercury, Buddah, Epic, & Arista, starring in the Broadway show “Timbuktu!”   

Along the way, Melba met music promoter Beau Huggins at an Apollo Theatre performance and they married in 1975. After years of unhappiness with the way her records were handled by labels during the 1970s, Melba & Beau took matters into their hands & formed Hush Productions – which allowed them to hire producers, writers, arrangers & promoters (thus controlling the music from creation to completion and beyond).  In 1981, Melba signed with the Capitol-EMI family of labels and hit the ground running with the albums “What A Woman Needs” (1981), “The Other Side Of The Rainbow” (1982), “Never Say Never” (1983) & “Read My Lips” (1985).  The singles hit both the R&B and Dance charts, from “Love’s Comin’ At Ya’” to the rock-flavored “Read My Lips” – which earned Melba a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance (she lost to Tina Turner’s “Better Be Good To Me”). 

By the end of 1985, Hush Productions had nailed gold & platinum record awards on the office walls – thanks to hits from Freddie Jackson (“You Are My Lady”, “Rock Me Tonight”) and Meli’sa Morgan (“Do Me, Baby”).  Even their comrade-in-arms Lillo Thomas (the author of Melba’s 1982 smash, “Mind Up Tonight”) made the charts with his best-selling singles & albums (he had his own production deal with Capitol yet continued to work as a session singer for Hush artists). 

With this success, it was Melba’s turn to shine when she entered the studio to cut A LOT OF LOVE in 1986.  An army of writers & producers were hired for this effort – Kashif, Paul Lawrence, Gene McFadden, Vaneese Thomas, Howard King and Rahni P. Harris.  Collectively, this team created an album that covered one theme – love & romance.   In addition, unlike her dance-driven “The Other Side Of The Rainbow” and the rock-flavored “Read My Lips”, ballads were the focus on A LOT OF LOVE with only three uptempo songs in the bunch (ten songs total).  Musically, R&B with a touch of jazz was the chosen flavor throughout the disc.