Amazon.co.uk Review
Barry White kicks off
Staying Power, his first album since the 1994
The Icon Is Love, with a title track that boasts of his long-running stamina, both in bed and in terms of his career. Indeed, the mood here is often as reflective as it is seductive. While sticking close to the machine-tooled groove that helped make
Icon's "Practice What You Preach" such a memorable single, the disc also finds White putting his low-register stamp on War's "Low Rider" and Sly Stone's "Thank You" (the latter in a version that, intriguingly, recalls the slow
There's a Riot Goin' On take more than the better-known hit). Staying power? Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it.
--Rickey Wright
CD Description
The man with the deep, velvety voice capable of making women melt at a thousand paces returned in 1999 with another slice of sensous R&B. White was the original Love Man, the one who taught the moves to every would-be mack daddy who's comedown the pike since he appeared on the scene in the '70s. As befits one with so luxurious a voice, White intones over mostly slow-to-midtempo grooves, and the long tracks leave plenty of space for White's larger-than-life voice. The sultrymood does kick up a notch occasionally, though, as on the percolating, funky version of War's '70s hit "Low Rider". There are two versions of "The Longer We Make Love", which pairWhite with Chaka Khan and Lisa Stansfield, respectively. Onboth of these, White trades lines with his partner in a manner suggestive of his most evocative '70s hits, despite the very contemporary-sounding arrangement. White makes good on the album's title, proving himself the singer most likely tobe heard in the boudoir.