Midnight Star, Slow Jam | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 49^th edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Slow Jam” by R&B collective, Midnight Star. 

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 49^th edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Slow Jam”, performed by Midnight Star.

Picture it – Frankfort, Kentucky, at Kentucky State University in 1976! That’s where R&B collective, Midnight Star was formed! The band would impact both the pop and R&B charts, further enriching R&B’s illustrious history.  One of the collective’s best songs wasn’t a charting single but still a tremendous song: “Slow Jam”. “Slow Jam” appears as the seventh track from their 1983 album, No Parking on the Dance Floor. Notably, “Slow Jam” was written by Belinda Lipscomb (vocalist), Bo Watson (keyboards / vocals), Sid Johnson, and the one-and-only Babyface (Kenny Edmunds).

“Slow Jam” is a decadent, exuberant, major-key ballad that screams L-O-V-E. Watson delivers lovely, ultra-smooth lead vocals in the first verse. He brings chill, easy-going vibes, never sounding as if he perspires (“So I dropped in on a dance / Just to take a glance / And there this sweet, lovely thing was / She was more than enough”). Belinda Lipscomb brings the heat in the second verse, which is equally as accomplished as the first.  The sheer beauty of love is a big deal: “See, I waited all night long just to dance with you / And when you touched my hand / I knew you were the man / To turn my world around and make my dreams come true.” Aww! Additionally, the ad-libs and riffs by Lipscomb post-second verse are awesome – she commands! The harmonies are awesome on the most memorable, tuneful section of “Slow Jam,” the chorus, performed by Midnight Star collectively: “Play another slow jam, this time make it sweet / A slow jam.” All in all, Midnight Star delivered a tour de force with “Slow Jam” – a perfect love song!

 Midnight Star // No Parking on the Dance Floor // Unidisc Music Inc. // 1983

Midnight Star, Slow Jam: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 49 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Unidisc Music Inc.; OpenClipart-Vectors, Speedy McVroom via  Pixabay]