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2007 GRAMMY AWARDS: The men behind Mary J.
Blige's hit 'Be Without You' wouldn't be, without three key players from Atlanta
By Sonia Murray
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/11/2007
Tonight's Grammy Awards ceremony caps the most successful year of Mary J. Blige's career.
Her latest studio recording, "The Breakthrough," has sold more than 2 million copies and won nine Billboard Awards as well as two American Music Awards.
The Men Behind Mary J.
Now the soul-wrenching singer has this year's most Grammy nominations —- eight —- including nods for best R&B song, R&B album and female R&B vocal performance.
Of those, the safest bet is that her hit single "Be Without You" will take home at least one of the major Grammys it's up for, record or song of the year. The ballad was the biggest single of Blige's 15-year recording career, and one of 2006's biggest hits, spending a record 15 weeks atop Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, nine weeks topping the magazine's Hot 100 Airplay, and another four weeks at No. 1 on the Top 40. This performance served notice to the music industry that the somewhat unrefined young woman who introduced herself as the "queen of hip-hop/soul" in the early '90s is now unqualified musical royalty.
Should "Be Without You" win tonight, listen carefully to Blige's acceptance speech. She'll almost certainly thank three Atlantans who played crucial roles in creating the song for her: Bryan-Michael Cox, Johnta Austin and Chris Hicks.
Cox co-produced the song, which could earn him a record and song of the year Grammy of his own. Austin wrote the lyrics, making him a song of the year nominee as well. And Hicks was the intermediary between the songwriters and Blige.
"I truly believe they were God-ordained," Blige said of the trio in a conversation from Los Angeles. "He led them into my life. And I can't imagine going up there [to accept an award] without showing my appreciation to them. . . . Before that record ['Be Without You'] came along, people weren't believing I could come back. . . . They wanted me to put out a greatest hits album.
"But Christopher stepped up and was like, 'Are you kidding me? This record's done, and this record's a smash!' " Blige continued. "And soon enough, people started believing like we did."
So just how did Cox, Austin and Hicks become part of Blige's smashing success? Well, it began late one night after the club . . .
A call in the night
"I was leaving Vision when I got the call," remembered Cox, referring to the now-demolished Midtown nightspot. "It was about 2 a.m. And it's Jimmy Iovine" —- the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records —- "asking me if I can make a record for Mary in the same lane of 'We Belong Together.' Something that can spark the kind of comeback that Mariah [Carey] had."
Cox had been one of the writers on the Carey ballad, but, as he told Iovine on the phone, he wasn't the producer. Atlanta's Jermaine Dupri was.
"And to tell you the truth, I was kind of at my wit's end about the whole 'We Belong Together' thing. Not to sound cocky, because I'm not that kind of person at all, but with all that I'd done, people were still questioning my ability at that time. Because I had done so many records with Jermaine, I guess they were thinking Jermaine was basically carrying me. . . . I had something to prove."
So he accepted the offer, hung up with Iovine and rang his longtime collaborator, singer-songwriter Austin.
Instead of heading to his Smyrna home, Cox drove straight to Midtown's Doppler Studios and got to work. Fifteen minutes after he and his cousin Jason Perry started creating the dreamy, piano-centered music, he was done.
"It was the fastest track I ever made in my life," the 29-year-old recalled. "There was so much frustration behind it. So much, 'Don't ask me if I can make you a "We Belong Together!" Ask me if I can make a hit record for your artist!' "
Meanwhile, Austin made his way to Doppler from another session he was in with Dupri at Southside Studios in northeast Atlanta. The 26-year-old Grammy winner has been working with Cox since they were teenagers. And 2 a.m. phone calls were no surprise.
"I listened to the track for about 10 minutes, vibing to it, and I started writing," said Austin, a contender for three Grammys tonight. "The hook came to me first. And I almost scrapped it, because I'd never really heard Mary sing a straight-up love song. I mean, I'm a Mary fan. I'm familiar with all of her work.
"But I remember Quincy Jones saying, 'If something feels good to you, you've got to just roll with it.' Chris Brown's 'Yo' came to me the exact same way."
Less than 15 minutes after first listening to Cox's track, he'd penned the words.
Austin went on to sing or "demo" it, to show how the creators thought it should be performed. Before the sun came up, it had been sent to Blige's manager/husband, Kendu Isaacs.
Overwhelming response
Later that morning, Hicks got a call from Isaacs.
He was "Wigging! Out!" said Hicks, who has a number of titles in the music business —- CEO of Noontime Music Publishing, co-CEO of Beat Factory, senior vice president and head of urban music at Warner Chapell Music Publishing —- "but I'm basically a broker. A middleman."
And in this particular scenario, he was Cox and Austin's manager.
Within days, Blige was in the studio cutting the new tune.
"When I first heard it, I knew," Blige said. "It was perfect. It was a smash. It was different for me, lyrically speaking. It changed the game —- you know, how people think of me.
"But I know that feeling," she added. "Like when I first heard 'No More Drama,' or some of the older songs on [the album] 'My Life,' and [the single] 'Real Love.' It's me, right at that moment."
When Blige was done recording, Isaacs called Hicks again.
"And if you know Kendu, you know he's very animated. Very entertaining. And I mean that in the very best way," Hicks says. "Anyway, he was like, 'This is it! This is absolutely the one!' "
As it happened, Hicks, Isaacs and Austin were in the same city that day —- Los Angeles —- and met up that afternoon at the Cheesecake Factory. "I remember it clearly," Hicks says, "Kendu playing the record with Mary on it, in his convertible Bentley. Blasting it!"
About six weeks passed between that moment after Vision and Cox putting the final touches on "Be Without You."
He and co-producer Ron Fair made some adjustments to Blige's vocals. Fair added strings. Cox added a few other accouterments and sped up the tempo.
Then on that last day of mixing the record —- Fair and mix engineer Dave Pensado in Los Angeles and Cox in New York —- Cox listened to what he called "the final pass" of the song.
"And it was one of those things that take the air out of you," he said. "I've only had that moment a few times in my career. . . . For 'Get Gone' for Ideal. But it was my first record, so that may have been just the exhilaration of it being my first record. When Jermaine and I wrote 'Burn' and 'U Got It Bad' [for Usher]. And that may have been it.
"You know, I'm going to do a lot of records, get paid, and it's great," continued Cox, who has yet to win a Grammy, but is up for four this evening. "But at the end of the day, you want to make a record people acknowledge you with, associate you with. I had never made a record by myself that was like 'Be Without You.' At that moment, I was like, 'This is my shot to make my record. That record.' "
Interestingly enough, the first verse of "Be Without You" begins with, "Chemistry was crazy from the get-go."
Indeed.
2007 GRAMMY AWARDS: The men behind Mary J.
Blige's hit 'Be Without You' wouldn't be, without three key players from Atlanta
By Sonia Murray
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/11/2007
Tonight's Grammy Awards ceremony caps the most successful year of Mary J. Blige's career.
Her latest studio recording, "The Breakthrough," has sold more than 2 million copies and won nine Billboard Awards as well as two American Music Awards.
The Men Behind Mary J.
Now the soul-wrenching singer has this year's most Grammy nominations —- eight —- including nods for best R&B song, R&B album and female R&B vocal performance.
Of those, the safest bet is that her hit single "Be Without You" will take home at least one of the major Grammys it's up for, record or song of the year. The ballad was the biggest single of Blige's 15-year recording career, and one of 2006's biggest hits, spending a record 15 weeks atop Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, nine weeks topping the magazine's Hot 100 Airplay, and another four weeks at No. 1 on the Top 40. This performance served notice to the music industry that the somewhat unrefined young woman who introduced herself as the "queen of hip-hop/soul" in the early '90s is now unqualified musical royalty.
Should "Be Without You" win tonight, listen carefully to Blige's acceptance speech. She'll almost certainly thank three Atlantans who played crucial roles in creating the song for her: Bryan-Michael Cox, Johnta Austin and Chris Hicks.
Cox co-produced the song, which could earn him a record and song of the year Grammy of his own. Austin wrote the lyrics, making him a song of the year nominee as well. And Hicks was the intermediary between the songwriters and Blige.
"I truly believe they were God-ordained," Blige said of the trio in a conversation from Los Angeles. "He led them into my life. And I can't imagine going up there [to accept an award] without showing my appreciation to them. . . . Before that record ['Be Without You'] came along, people weren't believing I could come back. . . . They wanted me to put out a greatest hits album.
"But Christopher stepped up and was like, 'Are you kidding me? This record's done, and this record's a smash!' " Blige continued. "And soon enough, people started believing like we did."
So just how did Cox, Austin and Hicks become part of Blige's smashing success? Well, it began late one night after the club . . .
A call in the night
"I was leaving Vision when I got the call," remembered Cox, referring to the now-demolished Midtown nightspot. "It was about 2 a.m. And it's Jimmy Iovine" —- the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records —- "asking me if I can make a record for Mary in the same lane of 'We Belong Together.' Something that can spark the kind of comeback that Mariah [Carey] had."
Cox had been one of the writers on the Carey ballad, but, as he told Iovine on the phone, he wasn't the producer. Atlanta's Jermaine Dupri was.
"And to tell you the truth, I was kind of at my wit's end about the whole 'We Belong Together' thing. Not to sound cocky, because I'm not that kind of person at all, but with all that I'd done, people were still questioning my ability at that time. Because I had done so many records with Jermaine, I guess they were thinking Jermaine was basically carrying me. . . . I had something to prove."
So he accepted the offer, hung up with Iovine and rang his longtime collaborator, singer-songwriter Austin.
Instead of heading to his Smyrna home, Cox drove straight to Midtown's Doppler Studios and got to work. Fifteen minutes after he and his cousin Jason Perry started creating the dreamy, piano-centered music, he was done.
"It was the fastest track I ever made in my life," the 29-year-old recalled. "There was so much frustration behind it. So much, 'Don't ask me if I can make you a "We Belong Together!" Ask me if I can make a hit record for your artist!' "
Meanwhile, Austin made his way to Doppler from another session he was in with Dupri at Southside Studios in northeast Atlanta. The 26-year-old Grammy winner has been working with Cox since they were teenagers. And 2 a.m. phone calls were no surprise.
"I listened to the track for about 10 minutes, vibing to it, and I started writing," said Austin, a contender for three Grammys tonight. "The hook came to me first. And I almost scrapped it, because I'd never really heard Mary sing a straight-up love song. I mean, I'm a Mary fan. I'm familiar with all of her work.
"But I remember Quincy Jones saying, 'If something feels good to you, you've got to just roll with it.' Chris Brown's 'Yo' came to me the exact same way."
Less than 15 minutes after first listening to Cox's track, he'd penned the words.
Austin went on to sing or "demo" it, to show how the creators thought it should be performed. Before the sun came up, it had been sent to Blige's manager/husband, Kendu Isaacs.
Overwhelming response
Later that morning, Hicks got a call from Isaacs.
He was "Wigging! Out!" said Hicks, who has a number of titles in the music business —- CEO of Noontime Music Publishing, co-CEO of Beat Factory, senior vice president and head of urban music at Warner Chapell Music Publishing —- "but I'm basically a broker. A middleman."
And in this particular scenario, he was Cox and Austin's manager.
Within days, Blige was in the studio cutting the new tune.
"When I first heard it, I knew," Blige said. "It was perfect. It was a smash. It was different for me, lyrically speaking. It changed the game —- you know, how people think of me.
"But I know that feeling," she added. "Like when I first heard 'No More Drama,' or some of the older songs on [the album] 'My Life,' and [the single] 'Real Love.' It's me, right at that moment."
When Blige was done recording, Isaacs called Hicks again.
"And if you know Kendu, you know he's very animated. Very entertaining. And I mean that in the very best way," Hicks says. "Anyway, he was like, 'This is it! This is absolutely the one!' "
As it happened, Hicks, Isaacs and Austin were in the same city that day —- Los Angeles —- and met up that afternoon at the Cheesecake Factory. "I remember it clearly," Hicks says, "Kendu playing the record with Mary on it, in his convertible Bentley. Blasting it!"
About six weeks passed between that moment after Vision and Cox putting the final touches on "Be Without You."
He and co-producer Ron Fair made some adjustments to Blige's vocals. Fair added strings. Cox added a few other accouterments and sped up the tempo.
Then on that last day of mixing the record —- Fair and mix engineer Dave Pensado in Los Angeles and Cox in New York —- Cox listened to what he called "the final pass" of the song.
"And it was one of those things that take the air out of you," he said. "I've only had that moment a few times in my career. . . . For 'Get Gone' for Ideal. But it was my first record, so that may have been just the exhilaration of it being my first record. When Jermaine and I wrote 'Burn' and 'U Got It Bad' [for Usher]. And that may have been it.
"You know, I'm going to do a lot of records, get paid, and it's great," continued Cox, who has yet to win a Grammy, but is up for four this evening. "But at the end of the day, you want to make a record people acknowledge you with, associate you with. I had never made a record by myself that was like 'Be Without You.' At that moment, I was like, 'This is my shot to make my record. That record.' "
Interestingly enough, the first verse of "Be Without You" begins with, "Chemistry was crazy from the get-go."
Indeed.
