STACEY LATTISAW & JOHNNY GILL

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Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

When she was a teenager in the early '80s, urban soul singer Stacy Lattisaw had a string of Top 40 R&B hits, with three songs -- "Let Me Be Your Angel," "Love on a Two Way Street," "Miracles" -- crossing over to the pop mainstream. Lattisaw recorded her first album for Cotillion Records at the age of 12 in 1979, under the direction of producer Van McCoy. However it wasn't until she hooked up with Narada Michael Walden, a former drummer with the Mahavishnu Orchestra who was just beginning a career as a producer, that she became a star. Under Walden's direction, she had five hit albums between 1981 and 1986. She continued recording into the late '80s, signing to Motown in 1986, but her audience slowly disappeared. By the early '90s, she decided to retire from a music career and concentrate on raising her family.

Biography by William Ruhlmann

Born in Washington, D.C., Johnny Gill was discovered by singer Stacy Lattisaw after singing in his family's group Wings of Faith from age five. His solo career began in 1983 with the Top 30 R&B single "Super Love." In duo with Lattisaw, he scored an R&B Top Ten hit in 1984 with "Perfect Combination." In 1988, Gill joined New Edition, replacing Bobby Brown. In 1989 he sang on two R&B hits: "Where Do We Go from Here," a #1 by Stacy Lattisaw, and "One Love," by George Howard. Gill finally scored as a solo singer in 1990 with the release of his album Johnny Gill, which sold a million copies, topped the R&B chart, and made the Top Ten in the pop chart. Following the relative failure of 1993's Provocative -- which didn't produce any Top 10 R&B singles and only went gold -- Gill reunited with New Edition in 1996. A month after New Edition released Home Again in September of 1996, Gill released Let's Get the Mood Right.