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Classic Recordings: Lucy Pearl

Twelve tracks. One album. A supergroup that lasted about eighteen months and left behind one of the best soul records of its decade.

Lucy Pearl, 2000

Lucy Pearl was Raphael Saadiq of Tony! Toni! Toné!, Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and Dawn Robinson of En Vogue — three people from three of the most respected groups of the 1990s, each of whom had left or was leaving their band.

The self-titled album arrived in 2000 and was exactly what that lineup promises: Saadiq's live-band soul instincts, Muhammad's crate-digging and rhythmic sense, and Robinson's voice, which had carried some of the biggest R&B records of the previous decade.

Then it fell apart. Robinson left after one album amid disputes; Joi replaced her briefly; nothing more materialised. What remains is a single record that people have been recommending to each other for twenty-five years.

What to listen for

"Dance Tonight" is the hit and the one everybody knows — it also appears on the Love & Basketball soundtrack from the same year, which is how a great many people first heard it.

"Don't Mess With My Man" is the other single and the best showcase for Dawn Robinson — that clipped, slightly imperious delivery is unmistakable.

"Without You" is the ballad and the most beautiful thing on the record.

"Lala" and "Good Love" are where Saadiq's bass playing does the most work — he is a bassist first, and these tracks are built from the bottom up.

"Hollywood" and "They Can't" show Ali Shaheed Muhammad's fingerprints most clearly — the drum programming has a Tribe-like looseness that nothing else on the record quite matches.

"Lucy Pearl's Way" opens and "Lucy Pearl Tells" closes, which tells you they thought of this as an album rather than a collection.

Go deeper

Go to all three parent catalogues. Tony! Toni! Toné!'s Sons of Soul, A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders, and En Vogue's Funky Divas are each superb and could hardly be more different.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad's later work with Adrian Younge — the Midnight Hour project and the Jazz Is Dead series, which pairs them with living legends of 1970s jazz and soul — is some of the most interesting music being made anywhere.

And Raphael Saadiq's solo catalogue remains the thread worth following.

One last thought on the one-album career. Supergroups usually disappoint because three strong personalities cannot share a record; Lucy Pearl worked because all three had already proved themselves elsewhere and had nothing to defend. That it collapsed within two years is almost part of the appeal — there is no decline to account for, just twelve tracks and a permanent what-if.

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