A Tribute to Love & Legends featuring Jeffrey Osborne *** CANCELLED ***
Doors Open: 6:00 PM
Jeffery Osborne, started his musical career as lead singer of L.T.D. in 1982 Jeffrey Osborne began the second phase of his amazing career, moving from his long-standing role as lead singer to a first-rate solo career that continues to this day.
Born into a musical family in Rhode Island (his father was a noted jazz trumpeter), Osborne was playing professional gigs as a drummer before his 16th birthday. After high school he moved to Los Angeles and joined a self-contained soul/funk group that would ultimately be named Love, Togetherness and Devotion, or L.T.D. His rich, expressive baritone ultimately moved him to lead vocalist position, and during his tenure the group scored multiple pop and soul hits on A&M Records, including the dance classic "Back In Love Again" and a string of memorable ballads such as "Stranger," "Where Did We Go Wrong?" and "Love Ballad" (later remade as a dance tune by George Benson).
After over a decade with L.T.D., and while the group was still on top, Osborne left to pursue a solo career, remaining on A&M Records. L.T.D. released the acceptable Love Magic following Osborne's departure, but never really recovered from the loss. However, Osborne reached greater heights as a solo artist. His eponymous debut album was terrific, combining quirky dance tunes such as "I Really Don't Need No Light" along with radio-friendly ballads like "On The Wings of Love." Best of all was an Osborne-penned ballad masterpiece, "Congratulations," an emotional song of loss that remains one of his greatest tracks.
His follow up album, Stay With Me Tonight, was equally strong, with even better dance songs ("Don't You Get So Mad" and "Plane Love") and some solid slow tunes (the best of which was "I'll Make Believe"). Osborne continued to score on the Soul charts and, to a lesser extent, on the pop charts, into the early 90s with urban adult contemporary hits such as "Let Me Know," "She's On The Left," "You Should Be Mine" and "Only Human," the latter of which appeared on his first and only Arista album.
In 2003, Osborne released Music Is Life on his own JayOz label, giving him more artistic and financial control. The disc featured the beautiful wedding ballad "Rest of Our Lives."
In 2004, Osborne performed a few shows with Dave Koz and found much of his 70s and 80s audience had become smooth jazz fans, so in 2005 Osborne recorded an album of great soul songs of the 60s-80s that would appeal to both soul and smooth jazz audiences. The result of this effort was From the Soul, released in October of 2005 on JayOz, in cooperation with Koch Records. The first single from the disc was a nice version of the 60s classic "Yes I'm Ready." He then followed with the terrific A Time For Love, an album of standards produced by George Duke. He returned on Jazz label Mack Avenue Records in 2018 with Worth It All, a solid return to form that won for him a SoulTracks Readers' Choice Award for Male Vocalist of the Year, an incredible feat for an artist approaching his 70th birthday.