Happy birthday to the great Meli’sa Morgan

melisa_morgan

Happy birthday to the great Meli’sa Morgan, born December 6, 1962.

Like many soul music vocalists, the Queens, New York native began singing as a child in church and dreamed of a performing career.  By the time she was a teenager, Morgan was singing in local bands and entering talent contests.  She was accepted and attended Julliard School of the Performing Arts and also attended the famed Lee Strassberg acting school.

Once out of school Morgan began paying her dues as a backup singer, both on stage and in the recording studio, working with a number of major artists including Whitney Houston and Chaka Khan.  She also had a brief stint as a featured singer in the dance group Shades of Love. Her strong, deep voice caught the attention of Capitol Records, and she was signed to a solo recording contract in 1985.

Morgan’s debut single, a cover of Prince’s “Do Me Baby,” shot to the top of the R&B charts and the album of the same name hit the top five.  It showed Morgan to be an appealing, sultry singer and a developing songwriter.  She immediately followed “Do Me Baby” with the big hits “Fool’s Paradise” and “Do You Still Love Me.”  For her 1987 sophomore disc Good Love, Morgan teamed with then-hot songwriter/producer Kashif (Tavares, Evelyn King) and climbed the R&B charts again with “Love Changes” — to this day perhaps her most celebrated song — as well as the top five “If You Can Do It I Can Do It Too.”

While the hits slowed down in the 90s, Melisa stayed busy as a guest vocalist on the projects of other artists as well as on stage both in concerts and in various stage plays. She also recorded the 2005 album I Remember, which wowed her fans and won for her the Female Vocalist of the Year in the SoulTracks Readers Choice Awards.

Now, as she approaches nearly forty years in the spotlight, Melisa continues to be a force in music. Her song and movie Footprints of An Angel were a blessing to fans in 2022. And she has continued to perform, even as she receives well-deserved roses from the music industry — including recent’ acknowledgements from the Recording Academy for her work as a songwriter with such stars as Mary J. Blige and LL Cool J.

In 2023, Meli’sa received the SoulTracks Lifetime Achievement Award for her lasting contribution to music, and had another monumental event just a few months later, when she received her gold record for Do Me Baby, 37 years after its release.

Happy birthday, Meli’sa!

By Chris Rizik

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