Retrospectreview: Patrice Rushen’s Straight from the Heart Still Slaps After All These Years

Released: April 14, 1982

Jazz Pop
R&B

For a guide to the gem rating system, click here.

[This review was originally published on June 1, 2020, but in celebration of the album’s recent remaster (and the fact that it’s become one of my favorite records ever) I thought I’d rerelease it for a fresh set of eyes. I hope you enjoy!]

Let’s go back to 1982, where jazz, R&B and pop were steadily intertwining in ways that would lead to some incredibly iconic music. It’s easy to look back to that era and spot the meteors: Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, or Prince’s Dirty Mind, for example. Patrice Rushen may have partially faded in the crowd of post-disco also-rans like Al Jarreau or Evelyn “Champagne” King, but that has more to do with the fickleness of the American music industry than any lack of talent on Rushen’s part. A piano prodigy since her elementary years, Rushen found a national voice by the time she landed the opportunity to play the Monterey Jazz Festival at 17, and after signing to Elektra Records she attempted to forge her talents into a successful music career. Whether or not she got there depends on your definition of success; Straight From The Heart, her highest-charting record, still only hit #14, largely on the strength of its trendy lead single, “Forget Me Nots”.

Yet even if chart success can ultimately decide what gets entered into the annals of history, there’s something about Rushen’s work, and this album in particular, that still resonates after all this time. The music is solidly enjoyable, yes, as breezy and supple as any accomplished 80’s R&B. But it also bears this element of unpredictability, maybe not stylistically but structurally. It’s easy to point to any of her contemporaries and find a noticeable point of equivalence, but who’s making a track quite like the ultra-tight dance-beat of “I Was Tired Of Being Alone” or the groove of “All We Need”? Four albums into her Elektra contract, Rushen had already proved herself as an incredibly nuanced pop songwriter, and her fingerprints are all over this record, bestowing Straight From The Heart with her best work.

Its quality is consistent across the board, but it’s also easy to see from the moment you press play. “Forget Me Nots” was a hit single for a reason. On the surface (which is typically how every radio hit is digested) it’s a perpetual post-disco bounce with breezy synths and effusive percussion. But look closely at the parts, how the hand-claps on the downbeat are introduced by touches of twinkly, high-note decrescendos on the keyboard, how tastefully Freddie Washington’s bass supports the main melody, and then how that main melody flips a traditional pop chord progression into something peculiarly original. It does everything a hit single is supposed to do, gracing your mood even outside a close listening, but like many underrated songs around this time period, there’s an attention to detail that keeps it in memory long after it leaves the charts.

Much on Straight From The Heart carries this heightened sense of craft. The other track that’s remained outside of its era, the low swing of “Remind Me,” has been sampled to death by everyone from the Notorious B.I.G. to Faith Evans, and for good reason. The most notable ingredient, again, is the interplay between Rushen’s staccato keyboards and Washington’s bass, which slithers underneath like unspoken words. That combo is quintessential R&B: the contrast between delicate and raw, high and low. But there’s also tons of tiny moments that lift up that interplay, like Rushen’s melodically parabolic intro or her character-laden keyboard solo, itself eventually supported by choice vocal harmonies. The whole thing is so well-made, so thick with its specific mood, that it feels encased in amber.

As with many records fashioned in the time of vinyl and cassettes, this one has a clear division between Side A’s upbeat dance numbers and Side B’s slower tempos. Besides that, Straight From The Heart might be Rushen’s most versatile collection of jams. There’s the bongo-crested “Number One” that plays like a Chic outtake. There’s the electric guitar searing through perhaps the album’s least memorable track, “Breakout!” There’s Rushen’s quasi-Brazilian take on bossa-nova, the soothing closer “(She Will) Take You Down To Love,” which nonetheless works thanks to her guitar work and some cleverly atmospheric reverb on the drums.

When an artist is known mostly for one song, it can be difficult to properly appreciate the package surrounding it, especially after the mid-70’s as the industry was roaring into gear. Yet over the last five or so years, Rushen’s been seeing a spike in popularity that points to some greater sense of influence. It’s not that she was necessarily doing anything new on Straight From The Heart, but’s it’s to the extent that she chased the perfect mixture of jazz, pop and R&B that it still feel fresh after almost forty years.