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<\/p>\nSmooth R&B vocal group the Whispers have been a fixture of the music landscape for a half century. With a sound that draws from vocal greats like the Temptations, the Whispers apply a soothing approach that keeps the focus on the vocals. But the enduring act has applied a solid slow-jam dance groove to its approach as well, earning a lengthy string of hits in the process.<\/p>\n
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Though they started in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts in 1963 and gained fame as a live act\u2014aided in part by support and encouragement from Sly Stone\u2014it wasn\u2019t until the end of that decade that the Whispers scored a record deal. Led by identical twins Wallace and Walter Scott, the Whispers would eventually release more than two dozen albums. Beginning with 1969\u2019s \u201cThe Time Will Come\u201d (#19 on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s R&B chart), the group would score 21 R&B charting singles over the next decade. The Whispers enjoyed crossover appeal as well; nearly half of those singles would appear on the mainstream charts as well, though none cracked the Top 40.<\/p>\n
That all changed with the release of \u201cAnd the Beat Goes On\u201d in 1980. No relation to the Sonny and Cher hit, \u201cAnd the Beat Goes On\u201d displayed the Whispers\u2019 seemingly effortless ability to change with the times. A sleeker, slicker sound for the new decade resulted in even greater success for the group; the Whsipers hit the R&B Top 40 no less than 16 times in the \u201880s charts. Three of those\u2014including the 1987 smash \u201cRock Steady\u201d\u2014crossed over onto the mainstream chart as well.<\/p>\n
And the hits didn\u2019t stop coming: the Whispers remained mainstays on the R&B chart throughout the 1990s, with nine charting singles. The group was recognized for its accomplishments in 2003 by induction into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Three of the Whispers\u2019 LPs\u20141980\u2019s Imagination<\/i>, Love is Where You Find It<\/i> from 1981 and 1990\u2019s More of the Night<\/i>\u2014went Gold, The Whispers<\/i> (1979) and Just Gets Better With Time<\/i> from 1987 earned the Platinum sales designation. Today much of the group\u2019s 1970s material is out of print; a proper compilation covering that era is long overdue; the few historical collections of the group\u2019s material focus on the \u201880s and beyond, and many best-ofs are latter-day re-recordings of the classic era material.<\/p>\n
The Whispers\u2019 front line has remained remarkably constant over the decades. Today the Scott brothers continue to lead the group; vocalist Leaveil Degree has been in the Whispers since replacing original member Gordy Harmon in 1973. The group continues to receive honors; in 2014 the Whispers were inducted into the Official R&B Hall of Fame. In 2009 the group released its first-ever gospel album, Thankful<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The group doesn\u2019t maintain a heavy touring schedule these days; a February date in San Jose, California was billed as the \u201cValentines Super Love Jam.\u201d An evening of soul and R&B, that show included sets by the Dramatics, Heatwave, the Delfonics, Peaches and Herb, GQ, the Moments, the Lovelites and Eddie Holman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Smooth R&B vocal group the Whispers have been a fixture of the music landscape for a half century. With a sound that draws from vocal greats like the Temptations, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,60,69],"tags":[3787],"class_list":["post-16449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-rb","category-soul","tag-the-whispers","cat-27-id","cat-60-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16451,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449\/revisions\/16451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}