# Forget her nots: Patrice Rushen compilation captures formative elektra years: Photo, Video
- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/07/20/forget-her-nots-patrice-rushen-compilation-captures-formative-elektra-years-photo-video/
- Published: 2019-07-20T11:56:24+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU
**From 1978 to 1984, Patrice Rushen recorded a series of hits for Elektra Records
that helped define the sound of late-era disco and R&B. **
The Los Angeles singer and keyboard player’s Elektra years were brief but prolific,
generating such iconic jams as “Haven’t You Heard” and “Forget Me Nots.” Due out
July 19, the compilation record Remind Me: The Classic Elektra Recordings 1978-1984
revisits that formative period in Rushen’s industry-spanning musical career.
Rushen actually began her recording career not as a soul singer, but as a jazz piano
prodigy. Her earliest albums, which were mostly fusion and straight-ahead jazz LPs
made for Prestige Records, showcase her talents as a writer, keyboard player and
arranger.
It was only when Rushen transitioned to Elektra in 1978 that she began to sing her
own vocals. Her voice proved to be something of a secret power — one that had been
previously hiding in plain sight.
Rushen sang in a way that easily complemented and furthered the dominant R&B style
of the period. By the late ’70s, R&B was deep into its quiet-storm era of softer,
smoother ballads. Lighter, higher voices like [Minnie Riperton](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/11/330781619/35-years-after-minnie-ripertons-death-new-fans-still-find-her)‘
s ruled the radio waves at the time. Rushen — with her youthful, lilting tone —
fit right in.
Much more than fitting in, though, Rushen’s singing is representative of broader
shifts in pop culture of the 1970s and ’80s. Rushen’s years with Elektra, as captured
in the _Remind Me _anthology, spanned a crucial, transitional time in black popular
music. The sound of soul that had dominated the beginning of the ’70s had gradually
gave way to funk, which, in turn, ushered in disco and any of Rushen’s hits from
the era reverberate with those dance-inspired influences.
By 1984, the year Rushen released her fifth and final Elektra album, _Now_, the
rise of hip-hop had initiated another sea-change within R&B that largely sidelined
the cadre of established stars like Rushen. Nonetheless, Rushen’s stature in the
music industry grew in other ways as she expanded her sights beyond performing.
Since those years in the spotlight, Rushen has gone on to become a music director
for the Grammys and Emmys, a composer for film and television and a music professor
at USC.
In the grand arc of Rushen’s career, the Elektra years were just one chapter. But
as brief as they may seem in hindsight, those years generated so many iconic jams,
fans don’t really need much to remind them.
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