Happy 40th Anniversary to Teena Marie’s third studio album Irons In The Fire, originally released July 6, 1980.
Drop the bass. This crowd recognizes “Give It To Me Baby” and readies their dance moves. Suddenly, Teena Marie turns. “No, no, no, no. Stop!!” Her band melts into a clumsy pause. “I like that…but I wanna hear that other bass line,” she returns to face the audience, “that bass line that I wrote.” And that’s how she opens a live performance of “I Need Your Lovin’”—like a boss. This is appropriate since “I Need Your Lovin’” is how Marie opened Irons In The Fire, the record where she first became the boss.
Prior to that, she was 20-year-old Mary Christine Brockert, a new Motown Records signee going through a frustrating battery of demo recording sessions with various producers. She logged time with Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise who discovered glam rock gods KISS. The label also put young Mary in the studio with Winston Monseque who helmed a pair of hits for Tata Vega.
Label head Berry Gordy was unimpressed with their output. He would release none of it. She languished on Motown’s roster for three years until a chance encounter with rebel funkster Rick James sparked her tinder. He agreed to produce her early 1979 debut Wild And Peaceful, where she was rechristened as Teena Marie.
A firestarter call-and-response duet called “I’m a Sucker for Your Love” presented Marie as Rick’s new protégé. “Well alright, you freaks,” he barked with sinister allure, presumably between puffs of a cigarette, “give it up for Lady T!” As it turned out, there were enough freaks to ecstatically push that initial single up to #8 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart.
Marie gleaned a lot while recording Wild And Peaceful, but still didn’t feel ready to take the reins herself. So label executive Hal David hired producer Richard Rudolph to captain the sophomore release Lady T. Their shiny, sequined collaboration blazed into record stores on Valentine’s Day of 1980. Marie wrote on every song except “Now That I Have You,” a gorgeous ballad intended for Rudolph’s late wife, singer Minnie Riperton.
Riperton’s crystalline voice and gossamer high notes paired perfectly with her husband’s production. But for Marie, Rudolph’s soundscape was much too perpendicular. Her voice was an expressive, dynamic, and daring one. Where a little structure can help focus raw talent like hers, Lady T cinched Marie’s brassy instrument in too tightly at the waist. The result was a beautiful collection of songs so polite, it bordered on impotence.
Only one of the album’s two US singles got anywhere near the R&B Top 20. A prescient Rudolph continually reminded Marie during their recording sessions, “You don’t need me!” If she were courting a pop crossover, Lady T would have been a step in the right direction. But Marie was trying to get back home. She wanted to be where the funk was.
Once again, she went back to the studio, but this time she had a new idea for her sound. As a matter of fact, she had all of them. “[Berry Gordy] told me not to bring anyone in [because] a producer would just use my ideas and take the credit,” she relayed in a 1981 interview referenced within the liner notes of the 2001 compilation The Best Of Teena Marie: The Millennium Collection.
Without a man in her way, Marie’s prowess as a self-contained multi-instrumentalist took center stage. Joined by players from Motown house band Ozone and Rick James’ Stone City Band, she had all the muscle she needed to execute her vision. Irons In The Fire was released July 6, 1980, entirely written, produced, and arranged by Teena Marie.
The first single “I Need Your Lovin’” elbowed its way onto radio easily with that infectious bass line Marie so proudly asserted authorship of. Gone were the attempts to make her hearty voice over as buoyant or fluffy. Instead, she leaned into boldly double-tracked leads with full trumpeting might. She struck an ideal balance between the sweetness cultivated on Lady T and just enough of the danger that made “Sucker for Love” tart and irresistible.
“I Need Your Lovin’” peaked at #9 on the R&B chart, backed with Irons’ introspective title track. Draped in piano flourishes and harp glissandi, the alto-anchored refrain of the ballad conjures the poise of Phyllis Hyman. Moreover, it recaptures the slow burning charm of “Deja Vu (I’ve Been Here Before)” from her first album. She no longer needed a Rick James.
The album’s second single was the Smokey Robinson-influenced “Young Love,” twinkling with starry-eyed doo-wop harmonies and mellow orchestral cushion. “Why you wanna say goodbye? Why you want make me cry?” Marie wailed at the emotional climax of that quiet storm gem.
The disco-kissed “First Class Love” flaunts a bass line that pops like fish grease. The winding synths on it wouldn’t have been out of place on a Rod Temperton composition for Heatwave. Meanwhile, Marie motored through that groove with the same growl that gave Riperton’s “Adventures in Paradise” its cat-claws.
Irons in the Fire isn’t front-loaded either. Marie waited to flip the LP over before revealing “Chains,” a feverish and fiery workout, vaguely reminiscent of Chic’s 1978 anthem “Chic Cheer.” Punctuated by Ozone’s backing vocals, her siren calls injected this dance floor stomper full of urgent sexual energy.
Marie reached further into her musical color palette to deliver the samba soul of “You Make Love Like Springtime.” Its melody read like a deconstruction of Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” from a female perspective. Before closing out, she slipped in the jazz-dusted “Tune In Tomorrow,” allowing the band to stretch out musically as she alternates between scatting and squalling.
In the early 1980s, it was virtually unheard of for women to be credited as music producers. But given their successes with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, Motown knew the benefits of freeing artists to use their full wingspan. From this point forward, it became standard for Marie to be the sole architect of her sound, inviting collaborators only when it suited her.
She didn’t forsake Ozone either. The band that helped her reach her artistic peak on Irons In The Fire found themselves middling and sidelined at Motown just as Marie did at the start of her career. As anyone would for their friends, she doubled back to help. She produced the first half of their 1981 album Send It which yielded “Gigolette,” a spunky chart entry she co-wrote and sung on. It was then their biggest hit to date.
It took a few iterations before the right elements coalesced as the Teena Marie that fans would know and love for the next thirty years of her career. Wild And Peaceful introduced her blue-eyed soul to a devoted Black audience. Lady T almost introduced us to the beginnings of a polished pop star. But Irons In The Fire is the first time Marie got to introduce herself as herself. And how very nice it was for us all to truly meet her.
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