For his follow-up, 1995 ’s I Remember You, the singer wrote 14 of its 15 tracks. He also kept up a disciplined schedule of songwriting and recording. McKnight ’s rising star brought him an invitation to produce a Christmas album for the group Boyz II Men. ![]() ” The success led to collaboration with actress/singer Vanessa Williams, and their duet single, “Love Is, ” emerged as a top five hit and was featured on the soundtrack to the Fox-TV drama Beverly Hills 90210. ” The record went gold, and critics praised McKnight ’s smooth, understated manner that distanced him greatly from the raunch of many other young R&B singers People reviewer Jeremy Helligar characterized it as a “Moet-and-Brie style. 17 on the Billboard charts, and featured the single “One Last Cry. McKnight ’s debut album finally arrived in 1992. I had a lot of growing up to do -as a person and artist, ” he admitted, and praised the executive who signed him, Ed Eckstine, for his patience. You couldn ’t tell me anything couldn ’t tell me how to sing or what to write. “I was 19, ” McKnight confessed in his record company biography. Yet executives at the label did not immediately let McKnight loose in the studio, instead forcing him to develop his singing and songwriting talents. ![]() He then shopped his demos to record companies, and Mercury/Polygram recognized the raw talent and signed him. Working with Barnes, he wrote and recorded dozens of songs, sometimes at the rate of three a day. Incensed, his mother ordered him back home to Orlando, but he begged to stay on until June so that he could work with Barnes McKnight told her he would come home if he did not win a record deal by then. Then, in March of his sophomore year, McKnight was expelled from college for violating Oakwood ’s strict rules regarding dormitory visitors both he and his girlfriend had to leave. Blige, Boyz II Men, and Take 6.Īwards: Four Grammy nominations NAACP Image Award.Īddress: Office -c/o Polygram Records, 825 Eight Ave., New York, NY 10019. Diddy ” Combs, Justin Timberlake of N ’Sync, Mary J. Signed to Mercury Records, 1989 released first album, Brian McKnight, 1992 I Remember You, 1995 Anytime, 1997 Bethlehem, 1998 Back At One, 1999 Superhero, 2001 worked with Sean “P. Religion: Seventh-Day Adventist.Ĭareer: Singer. During his own time in Huntsville, the younger McKnight made the acquaintance of a local producer named Brandon Barnes and his Sound Cell studios, and the two began working together on musical projects from him McKnight learned the studio production wizardry he would later put to use in his At a Glance …īorn June 5, 1969, in Buffalo, NY married two children. Yet around that same time, Claude McKnight and his gospel group Take 6 were signed to a record label, and the role-model brother abandoned his studies to record in Nashville. In 1987 McKnight headed to Huntsville, Alabama to attend Oakwood College, a strict Christian institution that his brother Claude also attended. By the time he finished high school, he had formed a band without his mother ’s knowledge and was playing in bars. “Church music thrilled me, but jazz stimulated my mind, ” McKnight recalled in a biography issued by his record company. ![]() He had also learned to play the piano by ear, and was a solid jazz pianist by the time he was in his teens. Yet music became more of a lure, especially after he took up the trumpet and found inspiration in the career of horn prodigy Wynton Marsalis he was also a great admirer of the music of Stevie Wonder. He was a member of the football, basketball, and track teams, and even dreamed of turning pro. When he was eight, the McKnights moved to Orlando, Florida, and he grew into an avid and able athlete as a teen. All were serious about music, and as a youngster McKnight was heavily influenced by their tastes, which ranged from the Mighty Clouds of Joy to Gino Vannelli. The youngest of four boys, McKnight became the junior member of an a capella gospel quartet with his three elder siblings. Religion was an important part of the McKnight family heritage, with several generations of Seventh-Day Adventists behind McKnight ’s era his grandfather had been minister of music for a congregation, while his mother played the piano and sang alto in the gospel choir of Buffalo ’s Emanuel Temple. McKnight was born and lived his first eight years in Buffalo, New York, where he learned to sing while sitting on the lap of his mother. Yet McKnight works hard to earn new admirers as well: for his 1997 record Anytime, he expanded his horizons by working with some notable figures in rap music, with a not surprising success. His smooth vocal stylings and talent for writing and producing a stirring piece of music -and one devoid of even a hint of the risqu é -have earned him a devoted, largely female fan base. Critics have compared Brian McKnight to classic soul singers of a bygone era.
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