Let the Taste of Soul Family Festival countdown begin! TOS is two days away from the eleventh anniversary. TOS goers get to experience another year filled with infinite food choices, celebrity sightings and endless sounds of music.
Danny Bakewell Sr., creator and founder of Taste of Soul and chairman of Bakewell Media, is grateful for the partnership he has with the station. “Over the years 94.7 The Wave has continued to play a major role in the success of the Taste of Soul festival. My good friend Pat Prescott is one of our community’s icons,” he said. “Pat and the WAVE are a demonstration of what community partnerships and community empowerment is all about. We look forward to continuing this partnership through this year and into the future.”
94.7 The WAVE, whose music stage is sponsored by Budweiser this year, has been a media partner and radio sponsor with the Taste of Soul Festival since 2008. Providing some of music’s most legendary acts, now they are back to bring us some more!
This year, the radio station is taking music lovers back to some of the greatest hits from artists including Chosen Recovery Gospel Group, On Tour, Tom Browne, Troop and War.
Tom Browne
R&B artist Tom Browne was on the charts from 1979-1989 when he was recording pop-oriented material for GRP and Arista. His major hits in 1980 and 1981: the No. 1 US Billboard R&B single “Funkin’ for Jamaica (N.Y.)” and the No. 4 US R&B single, “Thighs High (Grip Your Hips and Move)”. Later in 1982 he released a minor hit called, “Fungi Mama (bebopafunkadiscolypso)” which was also recorded on the Arista record label. It reached number 58 in the UK chart. Browne studied piano for a year when he was 11 and then switched to trumpet, attending New York City’s High School of Music and Art. Originally interested in classical music, Browne discovered jazz while in college in the mid-’70s. He worked with Sonny Fortune, recorded with Lonnie Smith, and then signed with GRP. Although influenced by Freddie Hubbard and occasionally recording a hard bop number, most of Browne’s output during that era was clearly geared toward the marketplace. A commercial pilot, Browne largely dropped out of music by the late ’80s, but came back in 1994 with a recording for Hip Bop in several settings that included the credible jazz date “Another Shade of Browne.”
Chosen Recovery Gospel Group
The Chosen Recovery Gospel Group is a local trio composed of Bryant A.M.E. members Reverends Darlene Watley, Carolyn Cookie-Brown and Tony Jones. Some of their popular songs include “Holy,” “Emmanuel,” “Roller Coaster,” “What’s On Your Mind” and “Heaven.” The trio music is about delivering a message of salvation and engaging the crowd. The gospel group has performed at past Taste of Soul festivals giving the everyone hope in the Lord.
Troop
Troop began as a teen group that won $1000 on “Puttin’ on the Hits”, a nationally televised contest, by dancing and lip-synching to New Edition’s “Cool It Now.” The Pasadena, California quintet — Rodney Benford, John Harreld, Allen McNeil, Steve Russell, and Reggie Warren — were then signed to Atlantic, and their 1988 debut single, the LeVert-produced “Mamacita,” taken from their self-titled album, reached number two on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart. Their second album, 1989’s “Attitude”, featured two number one Hot Soul singles — including the Chuckii Booker collaboration “Spread My Wings” — and earned an RIAA gold certification. “Deepa”, released in 1992, was a creative step forward and contained yet another Hot Soul chart topper in “Sweet November,” a Deele cover, but the group subsequently went independent with two more full-lengths released later in the decade. Troop went inactive for several years but occasionally recorded and toured. In 2013, they released a single titled “Forever”.
War
One of the most popular funk groups of the ’70s, War was an eclectic group, freely melding soul, Latin, jazz, blues, reggae, and rock influences into their music. Although War’s lyrics were sometimes political in nature (in keeping with their racially integrated lineup), their music almost always had a sunny, laid-back vibe emblematic of their Southern California roots. Even if the jams sometimes got indulgent, they demonstrated War’s truly group-minded approach: no one soloist or vocalist really stood above the others (even though all were clearly talented), and their grooving interplay placed War in the top echelon of funk ensembles. They’re known for their hit songs “Spill the Wine”, “The World Is a Ghetto”, “The Cisco Kid”, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”, “Low Rider”, and “Summer”.
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