Songs In The Key of Life

By Keith Boykin, in music
Wednesday, November 29 2006, 10:50AM

A Talk With Gordon Chambers

I can't remember when I was introduced to Gordon Chambers. In hindsight, it seems like he was always there. I heard his words on the radio back in the 1990s when I was driving my car through the streets of Washington. Gordon has been writing songs since he was 7 years old. His hit songs were playing on the radio when he was barely out of college. Now as an adult, Gordon is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter with a new solo CD of his own, appropriately called Introducing Gordon Chambers.

If you've listened to the radio in the past dozen years, chances are you've heard Gordon's words too. He's written songs for Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah, Usher, Brandy, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan and Marc Anthony. He wrote Anita Baker's hit song "I Apologize" in 1994 and Brownstone's hit song "If You Love Me" in 1995. He's written several of my favorite songs, including Heather Headley's "If It Wasn't For Your Love" and Whitney Houston's "My Love." More recently, he's also written for Angie Stone ("No More Rain"), Beyonce ("After All Is Said And Done") and the Isley Brothers ("Just Came Here To Chill"). So I finally sat down and talked to Gordon for this special interview.

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INTERVIEW WITH GORDON CHAMBERS

Keith Boykin: Hi Gordon, thanks for doing the interview. So how’s life?

Gordon Chambers: Life is good. Busy. Traveling.

Keith Boykin: So who is Gordon Chambers?

Gordon Chambers: Gordon Chambers is a creative being, a good friend to have, a Jamerican, a singer, songwriter, producer, and a man who has had many dreams come true.

Keith Boykin: Where are you from?

Gordon Chambers: I was born in the Bronx, raised in Teaneck, New Jersey. But I think of Brooklyn as my home.

Keith Boykin: How did you become a song writer?

Gordon Chambers: I was taking classical piano lessons and found myself experimenting while I was practicing assignments. I was getting bored with learning other people’s songs from the 1700s so I found myself trying to create my own. I started trying to emulate Stevie Wonder’s chord changes which led me to creating my own chord structures.

Keith Boykin: When did you know you wanted to write music?

Gordon Chambers: I was seven or eight. I was a kid who loved [music]. My dad said as a baby I even tried to put vinyl records on the [record] player and [would] break the needles. And I always as a kid read album credits. I always imagined knowing the stars. I was obsessed with Gladys Knight and the Pips as a kid.

Keith Boykin: Was music always a part of your life when you were a kid?

Gordon Chambers: Yes, growing up. My parents loved music and still do. My father bought records every Friday night. And my mother cooked a lot…and friends came over a lot to listen to records. And my father used to DJ a lot at local clubs.

Keith Boykin: What about your family. Do you have any siblings or other relatives in music?

Gordon Chambers: I have one younger brother Brian. My brother loves music, but nobody else is in the music business. My brother paints…

Keith Boykin: You’ve written songs for Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Queen Latifah, Usher, Brandy, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan and Marc Anthony. Do you have any favorites?

Gordon Chambers: All of them, because I’m just grateful for every opportunity. Anita was one of the first big stars to cut one of my records. It was actually Queen Latifah first. Then Brownstone…Queen Latifah, Phyllis Hyman, and Anita Baker, in that order.

Gladys Knight was a huge high because I grew up loving her as a child. And then Whitney was a huge high because of the same thing. I was probably most intimidated by Aretha and Chaka Khan because both of their vocals are…they’re such singer, singers. Whitney was like my same age, so it was fun. And Chaka, I was just more intimidated because I have almost every album that both of those women have made in my whole life. Vocally I loved working with Deborah Cox and Yolanda Adams because technically they were impeccable. Patty was fun too.

Keith Boykin: Anybody you would like to work with that you haven’t yet?

Gordon Chambers: I would love to work with a lot of pop artists, like Celine Dion. I would like to work with Mary J. again. I would love to work with Alicia Keys. I would love to work with Beyonce again…And I would also love to work with people like Sting, Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox, Seal.

Keith Boykin: I saw you on that Bravo show “Being Bobby Brown” last year when you were over at Whitney Houston’s house. What do you think about Whitney’s new comeback?

Gordon Chambers: I’m excited about it. I always felt that…I never really felt like she had lost it. I just feel like everybody has periods of life where we get too much on our plates. And when I spend time with her that’s the impression I always got, that there was too much on her plate. And now she can take things off of her plate and just focus on being the great recording artist that it is her destiny to be.

Keith Boykin: You’re a Grammy-award winner. Where do you keep your Grammy?

Gordon Chambers: Technically the song I wrote is a Grammy-award winner. Anita Baker won the Grammy for the song. I have a certificate for the song, but she has the statue…She won a Grammy for the performance of the song. I’m the writer of a Grammy winning song.

Keith Boykin: What made you make the transition from song writer to recording artist?

Gordon Chambers: It was something that deep inside I always wanted to do. I always thought I would have been offered a record deal by the executives I worked with. And I finally got to the point where I really wanted to do this, and as Whitney said, I am not afraid to try it on my own…I was in a session with Whitney and I was singing around her and she actually heard me singing and looked at me and said 'Gordon if you want to do what I’m doing you should just go for it.' And that was such a huge inspiration…And I had to get over fears of being too old or not good enough or not this enough and get back to the love of singing and say 'I don’t want to die with a dream unpursued.'

Keith Boykin: How would you describe your music?

Gordon Chambers: I call it romantic soul music.

Keith Boykin: I’ve seen you perform before when your family was in the audience. Is there a family version and a non-family version of your concerts?

Gordon Chambers: No.

Keith Boykin: So it’s all family friendly?

Gordon Chambers: And to me I try to make the audience feel like we’re all one family. I grew up with my family being at my performances for my whole life. Even when they’re not in the audience, I feel like they’re still in the audience.

Keith Boykin: What advice would you offer to aspiring singers?

Gordon Chambers: I would say make sure you really are doing it because you love it, not just because you want to be a star. I would say take care of your voice. Live a lifestyle that will protect your instrument. I would say be yourself. Find your own voice. I would say get as much live performance experience as you can. Do open mics. Develop an audience. Build a buzz. And take some lessons.

Keith Boykin: That’s a good point. I think more and more people these days are being taught to take shortcuts to success instead of learning their craft and continuing to develop it.

Gordon Chambers:Absolutely. Especially this younger generation.

Keith Boykin: What advice would you offer to aspiring song writers?

Gordon Chambers: Much of the same advice applies. It’s a networking intensive business. For songwriters, I would say go back and listen to the great catalogs of generations before you so you can learn to be a classic songwriter and not just a trendy songwriter. I would say study the copyrights of generations past so you can learn classic song structure and what makes a song endure. And also be yourself. Write deeply from the heart.

Keith Boykin: You’ve had an interesting career path. I know you worked at Essence magazine for awhile. Tell me some of things you’ve done in your career?

Gordon Chambers: I was an editor there from 1990 to 1997. I’ve only really had three jobs. I was entertainment editor there from '92 to '97. And that job entailed all the entertainment coverage. Film coverage, music coverage. Authors. Features. I worked with writers like bell hooks. I edited Cornel West once. I even edited once an unpublished James Baldwin manuscript.

Keith Boykin: That's impressive. How many singer/songwriters can say that?

Gordon Chambers: I was an English major in college. It’s all connected because it all has to do with the level of words and writing. And I learned to network. Essence was a great networking community. I met everybody there. I had lunch with Maya Angelou once for six hours. I hung out with Winnie Mandela. Amazing years of my life. Very exciting. And Susan Taylor is a great lady. Working with her on a daily basis was a high.

Keith Boykin: How do you get into the music business in the first place?

Gordon Chambers: Writing at night and on the weekend with a song writing partner. I was going to a lot of workshops at ASCAP and BMI and…I was networking, hustling. I met a producer named Dave Hall. His first big assignment for me was to collaborate with Phyllis Hyman. Of course having been a fan I knew how to get into her vibe. At the time I was in New York, there were a lot of beat makers who didn’t have quality lyricists. So there was a demand for what I was doing. One opportunity led to another opportunity. Phyllis Hyman introduced me to the producer Barry Eastmond, who introduced me to Anita Baker. So one thing just kind of led to the other.

Keith Boykin: The first time I think heard you sing was on the Brownstone song “Half of You” back in 1995. I didn’t know who you were back then, but I loved your sound. Did you write that song too?

Gordon Chambers: Nikki and I wrote that song together.

Keith Boykin: Who’s your favorite recording artist?

Gordon Chambers: My favorite recording artist is forever changing because I study recording artists. Some time I take a moment and study a recording artist’s body of work. I’m trying to assess what music they were recording at what time of their life. But Chaka Khan is probably my favorite of all time, including the Rufus career. Because she sang jazz. She sang hip hop. She sang dance music, house, pop, R&B, gospel. She sang every genre of music. So do Aretha, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones. These are artists who’ve recorded every genre of music that there is. Donnie Hathaway. Stevie Wonder of course. Prince. Luther Vandross, because he had a mission and he always kept to his mission. Nina Simone is one of my favorite recording artists.

Keith Boykin: I love Nina Simone. I don’t think she has a great voice but there was something about her that was mesmerizing.

Gordon Chambers: Very compelling. She’s a storyteller.

Keith Boykin: What’s your favorite song?

Gordon Chambers: I have different ones. I could tell you probably five or six.

1. Yolanda Adams, Let Us Worship Him
2. Miles Davis, My Funny Valentine
3. Stevie Wonder, Love’s In Need of Love Today
4. Chaka Khan, I Know You, I Live You
5. Steven Bishop, It Might Be You
6. Donnie Hathaway & Roberta Flack, Where Is The Love?

Keith Boykin: What inspires you when you’re creating music?

Gordon Chambers: Being really honest. Touching people in a deep place. And knowing that songs are the tapestry of people’s lives. You have your wedding songs. You have your funeral songs. Your prom songs. Your healing songs.

Keith Boykin: What’s your favorite Gordon Chambers song?

Gordon Chambers: Probably one that I haven’t written yet.

Keith Boykin: My favorite Gordon Chambers song is “I’ll Miss You Most,” which is about a singer who has broken up with a lover. When you sing, “I’ll miss you most when I’m singing.” It sounds like you might have written it for someone else. Did you?

Gordon Chambers: That’s my favorite song on the solo album by far….I always thought it would have been a great song for Luther to sing.

Keith Boykin: Really. I never thought about that.

Gordon Chambers: I didn’t write it for Luther but I thought it would have been a great song for him to have sung. I always thought that song was my song. Gerald Levert actually wanted to record that song but I turned him down….I always thought that if I ever made a solo album that that song had to be on it. I would have made the exception for Luther though.

Keith Boykin: That's so sad that you mentioned Luther and Levert and now those two black men are gone too soon. What do you think about that?.

Gordon Chambers: I feel more like a weight on my shoulders, not in a bad way. I feel a mission to continue what their mission was about. Adult romantic soul music.

Keith Boykin: Speaking of which, why aren’t there more black men singing romantic soul music? So much of our music seems so hard edged today.

Gordon Chambers: Because I think a lot of black singers have become imprisoned by image and marketing. So they want to appeal like sexy and youthful so they do the music that they think will respond to their image. But when you actually get to talk to them about what they want to sing, [it's different]. Like I’ve talked to Gerald Levert about the music that he wanted to sing. I’ve talked to Carl Thomas about songs that he felt were his heart but not his image.

Keith Boykin: My favorite Gordon Chambers song that you’ve written is Heather Headley’s “If It Wasn’t For Your Love.” That is a beautiful song. What was the inspiration for that song?

Gordon Chambers: I’m re-doing it on my new album that’s dropping next spring. It’s called Love Stories and I re-recorded If It Wasn’t For Your Love.

Before American Idol was out, there was an earlier similar show in England called Pop Idol. A record company was looking for a song for the winner, so I was really writing about winning something that you’ve been working toward, and saying a thank you to those who supported you in the journey. But many people love it as a romantic or almost a wedding kind of song.

Keith Boykin: I never thought about it that way, but now that you say it it makes sense. It does sort of remind me of Fantasia's victory song "I Believe" when she won American Idol. But Heather Headley's song is a little more peaceful so it doesn't have that same tempo.

Gordon Chambers: Yeah, songs hit people in different places.

Keith Boykin: You’ve been on the road a lot this year. You've traveled all over the country on tour. My mom even got to see you in Houston. How has that experience been on the road?

Gordon Chambers: It’s been fun meeting people. Meeting fans. I’m a people person so I’ve enjoyed it a lot…It’s been reassuring to know that people really do love grown up music….especially in other parts of the country.

Keith Boykin: How do you like living in New York?

Gordon Chambers: I love living here. My family is here. And we’re very close. I enjoy being in close proximity to the family. I love being around the culture of New York City. And I love being so close to the airport so I can get out of here when need be.

Keith Boykin: Are you in a relationship?

Gordon Chambers: Nope.

Keith Boykin: Interested in it?

Gordon Chambers: I’m open to it sure.

Keith Boykin: I do a series on my web site where I ask prominent people to tell me five of their favorite things. Can you tell me five of your favorite things?

Gordon Chambers:

1. My favorite city is London.
2. My favorite food is some down home Jamaican food at a relative’s house.
3. My favorite movie of all time is The Godfather series.
4. My favorite TV show right now is The Wire.
5. My favorite color is orange.
6. My favorite holiday is Christmas.
7. My favorite season is autumn.
8. My favorite author is Toni Morrison.

Keith Boykin: Well, you're the first person to give me more than five things. Thank you very much Gordon. And good luck.

Gordon Chambers: Thank you.

Gordon Chambers is working on a new album Love Stories for a spring release. For concert announcements, please visit his web site, gordonchambers.com. His debut album, Introducing Gordon Chambers, is available on his web site, on ITunes, at Amazon.com, and at record stores near you.

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