Happy birthday to Tony Rich, born November 19, 1971.
Detroit-born singer Tony Rich displayed immense talent when he burst onto the music scene in the mid-90s, but he never reached the sustained commercial success that the music world anticipated.
Known initially as a staff writer at LaFace Records, Rich wrote hits for such artists as Boyz II Men and Toni Braxton, but in 1995 he moved to the front as a solo artist with his debut album, Words. It was an unadulterated smash. The first single, “Nobody Knows” cracked the top ten and the album won for Rich a Grammy Award for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, an amazing feat for a debut album. The album’s hidden gem was “Hey Blue,” a loping number about a perplexing relationship that simply oozed cool and was arguably one of the year’s great album cuts.
