Tavares, Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 191^st edition of Throwback Vibez (2023), we recollect and reflect on “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” by Tavares. 

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 191^st edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2023), we recollect and reflect on “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”, performed by Tavares.

“Heaven must be missing an angel / Missing one angel, child, ‘cause you’re here with me right now.” Oh, the feels, the feels, the feels! Grammy-winning collective Tavares keeps it all in the family – five Cape-Verdean American brothers born and bred in Providence, Rhode Island.  One of the biggest hits and best-known songs of the R&B/soul/funk collective’s career was “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”. “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” appears as the fourth track on the collective’s 1976 album, Sky High. Tavares earned multiple accolades for the record. For one, it peaked at no. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 – impressive.  Secondly, it marked the sole gold single of their career.  Gold singles were more difficult to come by back in the day, so, the fact “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” earned such honors is also impressive.

Matters of the heart drive the success of this song, period.  “Your kiss, filled with tenderness / I want all I can get out of your sexiness,” Tavares asserts, adding, “Showers, your love comes in showers / And every hour on the hour / You let me feel your loving power.” Ooh wee! Later, it’s admitted, “Ooh, I’m captured by your spell (ooh, ooh) / You’re different, girl, I can tell.” Indeed, indeed! With dynamic singing, tuneful melodies, sexy vibes, and a groovy, picturesque backdrop (Freddie Perren) – rhythm section, strings, winds etc. – “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” is nothing short of a vibe.  It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say this  six-and-a-half-minute Tavares song right here sounds angelic – just like heaven! Kent St. Lewis and Perren penned a good one!

🎙 Tavares • 💿 Sky High • 🏷 Capitol • 🗓 1976

Tavares, Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 191 (2023) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Capitol; John Alan Sperry, PIRO via  Pixabay]