Steve Arrington: The "Feel So Real" funkster returns to the scene

Wednesday 10th November 2010

Mike Rimmer spoke to R&B hitmaker and one time pastor STEVE ARRINGTON

Steve Arrington
Steve Arrington

In 1985 there was one song that was almost certainly going to get me onto a dancefloor. It was an undulating piece of dance funk and it reached number five in the UK charts. On top of that, the song was written and recorded by a believer and contained an upbeat, almost worshipful message celebrating new found faith. "Feels So Real" was both an R&B classic and a rare crossover gospel song.

Amazingly, Steve re-emerged in 2009 with a new album 'Pure Thang' which is packed with the funky grooves, catchy melodies and upbeat message which had once made him an R&B star. Arrington is on the phone from his home state of Ohio and reminiscing about his early career. Originally he was a member of the funk band Slave and he says, "I can still remember the track 'Just A Touch Of Love', me being at the mic for the first time really looking to belt out a lead vocal - that would be the primary lead vocal for that song - and how exciting that was. I remember Jimmy Douglas, who was then the producer and also co-producer on a lot of Slave tracks at the time, some of the note selection he was like, 'Ooh, that's really different, but it really works for this track'. My style was really starting to develop, starting with 'Just A Touch Of Love', and I really had a good time on that track."

Steve actually started in the band as the drummer! "I was hired to play drums," he says, giving us a brief history. "I did some singing in a lounge band called The Murphys prior to joining Slave, but I was never in any singing groups or was considered the man on vocals. I was just considered one of the better drummers in the Ohio area. So when I joined Slave I was hired as the drummer."

Slave made some quite adventurous funk music and along with the style of music, there were times when the band were quite raunchy. Arrington wasn't a Christian at this time but in his defence he says, "The thing about Slave, through all the music, we had a couple of songs, one called 'Shine' and a track called 'Roots'. We always got onto some spiritual stuff and we came street with it on some things too."

Did he have any Christian background at this point? "Yes, I come from a Christian family," he explains, " and had an uncle who was a pastor. To this day, the church that he started still continues on. He used to call me 'Moosic', he didn't call me 'Music', he called me 'Moosic', when I was just a little kid. He saw something in me: I've always loved music, and I've always had a spiritual side to me. I remember I used to write poetry when I was in junior high and my teacher used to tell me, 'Your poetry always has this spiritual side to it'. I used to talk about love a lot, and people loving one another. So, as far as I can remember, I've had this side to me. I used to chant to get into Buddhism, I was into Islam for a while, and I loved artists who had that spiritual side, like John Coltrane, and even people like the Beatles who went into a thing for a while. All of that touched me."

The burgeoning music career wasn't enough for Arrington and underneath it all, he became unsettled. He explains, "I remember being on the road thinking, 'There has to be more to it than this'. I loved music, and I still am a fan of music - I'm an artist, but I'm a fan of music, I love music. I remember thinking there needed to be more for me in the music. That was just a fleeting thought, but as time went on the spirituality that was sort of like a backdrop in my life for as long as I remember started to come more and more to the forefront. Basically I responded to that."

Steve Arrington: The "Feel So Real" funkster returns to the scene

He explains how he became a Christian. "I was in New York in 1984, I remember we were on a break on what turned into the 'Positive Power' album. I saw a guy wearing a sign that said that Jesus was going to be coming back. As I said earlier, I had been in a Christian family, and I also branched out and studied other religions, so I was fascinated by what this guy had to say. Many people would've thought he was crazy, but I looked at him and he was intense about what he believed but I was attracted to that enough to say, 'Hey, what do you mean by that?' He began to show me different areas in the Bible, and he began to speak to me about some spiritual things in a way that he really understood and he really knew. To some he looked goofy, but he was a person who was standing up for what he believed, willing to look goofy in order to find a person that was going down the street and just prepared to hear fresh words, and that happened to be me that day."

Arrington continues, "I came to Christ right then and there, went back to the studio, told my comrades exactly what happened, and some of them understood that and some of them didn't, and thought, 'This is just a phase'. But I'm still with the Lord."

What are his reflections about Slave? The funk band did record some raunchy songs. There are some people now in his audience, a lot of Christians, who would look at what he did with Slave and think that some of the songs had a bad message. "Well," he reflects for a moment, "the thing about the music in Slave, it's like a movie. You go to a movie, and even if you see the story of The Passion Of The Christ, it shows you the betrayal, it shows you the immorality that was going on at the time when Christ came on the earth, it shows you the beatings, and it shows you the Cross and the resurrection. If you check a movie out that T D Jakes put out called Woman, Thou Art Loosed - there's a rape scene in that movie. What I'm about now is bringing the understanding of the human experience, things that we deal with, and bringing them out front, to a place of, 'Hey, man, how can we develop and ascend to a new place?' At the same time, I'm also realising that today a beautiful love song is important - to say, 'Wait for me', is important. It's all put into how it's set up for the overall picture that you're trying to paint. That's where I'm at now, I call it 'the Adventure'. The adventure starts with Slave, but it ends up with 'Pure Thang'. So it's not me stepping away from what I believe in at all, it's just making it so that people who are unchurched can understand the journey. But the overall picture is to take someone to a place of, 'Yeah, I get it!' I understand, because I used to look at the music that I used to do as immoral, but some of it has to be put in the proper context."

Becoming a Christian altered the direction of the music that Arrington was making and not everyone was supportive. "No," he agrees. "I understood. I came to Atlantic Records as a secular artist who had proven to be a hitmaker with the band, Slave, and also with 'Steve Arrington's Hall Of Fame'. I chose to go a different direction spiritually and it showed up in the music I was writing. So there were people who were like, 'Hey, we have a winning formula. Why are we tampering with it?' My feeling about all of that is I understand their position, but I never got into music to say, 'I'm a part of sticking to a formula'. My heroes are guys like John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis - these were artists who always pressed the envelope, and they followed their heart. There were those who wanted Coltrane to stay in the 'Giant Steps', 'My Favourite Things' era in his career, and then all of a sudden he decided, 'You know what? I'm feeling a lot of this new avant-garde jazz coming up from Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, cats like that'. John Coltrane was deciding he wanted to go another way. There were people who felt uncomfortable with that, they wanted him to stay where they were comfortable with how he played through the changes, and when he started hearing new things he followed his heart. That's the type of artist I am, I follow my heart, because that keeps it exciting for me, it keeps it interesting, and it keeps me constantly wanting to learn and wanting to grow in my craft."

Ironically, the change of musical and spiritual direction gave Arrington worldwide success. There was something of the fresh joy of spiritual conversion which emanated from 'Dancing In The Key Of Life' that connected with people. He remembers, "I had sat in this environment, this new spirituality I felt, and doing tracks that had more dance feels to them and less hardcore funk, they started to have an elegance and I was feeling a new music that I'd finally got a hold of, and I was able to crystallise on that record."

Sadly the album remains currently unreleased on CD though it's available at download sites. At the time the British chart successes saw Arrington playing live in the UK and making media appearances. He has very happy memories of the era. "I was really excited about it," he says."Going over to Europe and to the UK was a fascinating time for me. It also caught me off-guard, because I had been known as an R&B/funk artist, and as I understood it, over there in the UK and Europe I was more like an underground artist for people who dug hard funk, the Slave music. But when I came over as a solo artist, 'Feel So Real' and 'Dancing In The Key' had really broken in a major way - from a pop perspective. So I had never really walked in those shoes before, where I was considered a pop artist. And people are recognising me and dealing with me more from a pop perspective. I appreciated it, and I was excited about it, but it was a new thing for me."

However like many artists, he didn't manage to sustain an extended list of hit singles. And soon for British fans he began to fade from view. He explains what was happening, "I got to a place where my spirituality continued to keep going forward into the forefront. It showed up in my music, then it got deeper - where I realised that I had to step away from the music and truly embrace my spiritual path. I ended up, after a while, preaching the Gospel. I became a pastor, I functioned as an evangelist, and also a worship leader. So I backed completely out of the music, because the music was no longer in the forefront. Just expounding on the Word, from the pulpit, that's what I'd been doing for years until the Lord laid on my heart - all of a sudden it was time for the music.

Steve Arrington: The "Feel So Real" funkster returns to the scene

His return to music has its first fruits in the album 'Pure Thang' which Arrington has released on his own label, God Factor. "I knew I was going to come back to the music," he says, "I just didn't know when. I was comfortable; just as comfortable as I was doing music and singing and making new records, I was equally as comfortable being away from that and being the pastor, the evangelist. I was just as comfortable, because when my heart changes, I don't look back; I can appreciate my past, and enjoy it, but I don't look back and say, 'I wish I could've done this,' or, 'I wish I could've done that'. I fully embrace where I am. So that's what I did, I walked away from it, and I stayed away from it for some time."

It's been 20 years that he's been away from recording music and 'Pure Thang' is packed with a freshness and creativity that rivals the music he made when he was at his most successful. Vocally, he still has his chops and with plenty of time in the studio, he's been able to push the boundaries as he's discovered a 21st century sound. Was it exciting going back into the studio and making new music? "It absolutely was," he says simply. "I was so geeked on it. I'm having so much fun, because I started to feel the fire. I continued to make songs and get into the digital midi realm, and also into the workstations and then to the software: I kept up on all of that, and I enjoyed making music that no one heard. But just to continue to keep myself aware of how trends were changing on how to make records. All of a sudden I decided to put a little loop on my website, and I got a call from a guy out in Jersey who said, 'Hey, man, I'm feeling that loop on your website. Can I play it?' I'm like, 'Really?' And cats like you called, and just checked on me through the years. I was surprised that people were still interested in what I was doing, to be honest with you. All of a sudden somewhere it got real serious for me, and all of a sudden the music moved right back into the forefront. I had such a wonderful time making this record, it was awesome."

'Pure Thang' seems like a perfect combination of Arrington as minister and as artist. The result is that both elements come through very strongly. He says, "It's honest, that's why it's called 'Pure Thang'. This record is honest, it's me baring my heart, and it's also me having a good time. I'm realising life is about enjoying it; I'm enjoying my life, and I'm also enjoying making music to share without any filters. I'm having a good time, and it's from the heart."

Although Arrington has spent some of the intervening years pastoring a church in Ohio, he is no longer doing so. He explains, "I pastored for some years, but again my heart changed and I knew to get into this music full-fledged, the way I really wanted to, I started to pull back from pastoring. All of a sudden I started getting all these calls to play drums, I would get calls from different churches, even to say, 'Hey, man, we're having a drum change, could you come down?' I'd stay at a church for maybe two years, and the Lord was transitioning me back into the music taking centre stage. That transition really started to happen very smoothly, where, all of a sudden, the drum engagements I was getting were starting to overcome the actual speaking dates that I was getting. I just flowed with it, and the next thing I knew it was like, 'You know what? It's time for me to start seriously singing and writing for a real album - not just writing music to keep the craft going. It's time to get back out here.' So what actually happened was I pulled back, made the adjustments, then it's like, 'All right now: it's time to do the music thing'. I fully just went totally off into it, and had such a wonderful time, because my time for pastoring was over."

Would he describe what he is doing as music ministry? "I call it good news," he says. "I spread good news. This album is a good news album, meaning that there are songs that are deeply spiritual in terms that are lyrically associated with church - songs like, 'It's True' and 'Right There'. But there are other songs like I Like What You Do, Tones and Right On Time' that speak more on the love issues. I think my music now is more on the line of things that were done before me. Curtis Mayfield, also the Impressions, Sly Stone - there was an era when he was doing lots of message music - Earth, Wind And Fire, also the music I did earlier was aimed more at a social statement. Women are being attacked in a lot of music today. I wrote a song called 'Coretta And Rosa' to bring people to remember the impact that women had in the civil rights movement - and that civil rights movement wasn't just for black people, it was for the whole United States to move forward. The importance of women needs to be put in the mindset of today, because the thing about Coretta and Rosa that meant a lot for me, is not only did they have to do their job in the civil rights movement, but Coretta had to live without Martin Luther King. She never remarried and she walked such a dignified walk that I think we need to remember. So my music today covers a lot of ground, and that's why I call it good news. I want to put a smile on somebody's face. Also deal with the issues, and bring some spirituality along with it."

I'm interested in how Steve's faith affected his fame, especially during the 'Dancing In The Key Of Life' era. "I always look at it this way," he says, "God is the star, God is the great talent. He just issues out his giftings to us, and the thing I learned about all of it is just, 'Hey, man, enjoy the blessing that he's given. None of us are perfect, none of us are above making mistakes. But this is a gift, and treat it as such. So when 'Dancing In The Key Of Life' and 'Feels So Real' was booming and I was doing my thing, I was just thankful, and I'm thankful today. I really mean that, it's not a cliché, it's not the right thing to say: it's the truth. I'm thankful that I can still have music that moves me. The bottom line, the pure thing, 'Dancing In The Key Of Life', the changes that I've made, that music moves me. If it moves me, it's got a chance to move someone else. Remember, I love music. If the music moves me I'm going, 'Hey, this is the direction!' I see it as a blessing and a gift to be appreciated. I'm just a person who God has given this gift to, and I want to treat it with respect." CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Mike Rimmer
Mike RimmerMike Rimmer is a broadcaster and journalist based in Birmingham.


 

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