`Can You Woo Woo Woo?': `The Best of Jeffrey Osborne' Includes `You Should Be Mine -- The Woo Woo Song,' `She's On The Left' and More R&B Pop Hits.

Entertainment Editors & Music/Retail Writers

LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--May 21, 2002

One of R&B pop's greatest voices and most swoonworthy artists, Jeffrey Osborne, was the top urban contemporary artist of the `80s. Throughout his career, whether on uptempo grooves or seductive ballads, Osborne has been the epitome of soulful elegance, impassioned yet sophisticated.

"The Best Of Jeffrey Osborne" edition of "20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection" (A&M/UME), released June 25, 2002, compiles a dozen of his greatest hits, 10 R&B Top 10s, eight of them pop Top 40 hits, each digitally remastered. The album spans 1982-1988 when, according to Radio & Records, Osborne was the premiere artist in the genre (second only to Michael Jackson in Top 5 records -- 10 Osborne, 11 Jackson).

His solo career on A&M took off when he was teamed with producer George Duke. 1982's "Jeffrey Osborne" was led by its first single, the uncharacteristically aggressive "I Really Don't Need No Light" (#3 R&B/#39 pop). But it was followed by the more Osborne-friendly, soaring romantic anthem "On The Wings Of Love" (#13 R&B/#29 pop).

1983's "Stay With Me Tonight" featured the sassy mid-tempo "Don't You Get So Mad" (#3 R&B/#25 pop), funky title track (#4 R&B/#30 pop), driving "Plane Love" (#10 R&B) and buoyant Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil ballad "We're Going All The Way" (#16 R&B). Another Mann-Weil composition (with Jeff Barry), "The Last Time I Made Love," was sung as a duet with former Mother's Finest singer Joyce Kennedy on her 1984 Osborne-produced debut album "Lookin' For Trouble," earning Osborne a Grammy nomination and an R&B #2/pop #40 hit. That same year, his own "Don't Stop" yielded its R&B #6 title track and the R&B #7/pop #38 "The Borderlines."

Ironically, two of his biggest solo hits were not produced by Duke. Richard Perry (The Pointer Sisters) produced "You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song)" (#2 R&B/#13 pop), with its infectious "Can you woo woo woo?" chorus, for 1986's "Emotional." The only solo #1 in Osborne's career, "She's On The Left," was his last hit from his last album on A&M, the self-produced "One Love-One Dream" in 1988. Also heard on "The Best Of Jeffrey Osborne" is "Love Power" (#5 R&B/#12 pop), a 1987 duet with Dionne Warwick written and produced by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, which appeared on Warwick's "Reservations For Two" Arista album.

Today, Jeffrey Osborne continues to be heard on album and in concert -- sounding as classy and romantic as always.

The series "20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection" features new "best of" albums from the most significant music artists of the past century.