Teena Marie – Beautiful (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Teena Marie – Beautiful (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:11 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UME Direct

Beautiful is the fourteenth and final studio album by American musician Teena Marie. It was posthumously released in January 2013 under Universal Music. The album was completed by Marie’s daughter, Alia Rose, due to her death in December 2010.

Several overdue reissues and the archival First Class Love were released within a couple years of Teena Marie’s passing. A bigger surprise came in January 2013, when UMe issued this, the artist’s 14th and final studio album. Its recording had been completed prior to Lady T’s death; proud daughter Alia Rose, a singer and MC who appeared on La Doña, Sapphire, and Congo Square, saw it through the mixing and mastering process. As Teena did on those fine 2000s albums, she weaves her exceptional songwriting skills with instrumentation that is both organic and synthetic, complementing her own playing and programming with input from several longtime instrumentalists. Likewise, she celebrates her inspirations in explicit and subtle fashions. The first song and lead single, “Luv Letter,” pays tribute to her Motown roots and cleverly references her daughter’s father with nods to “Please Mr. Postman” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.” A Curtis Mayfield cover, “Give Me Your Love,” one of two songs featuring Alia, glistens and most resembles the Barbara Mason version. Elsewhere, Teena quotes Barry White and the Stylistics, as well as herself, and even references A Tribe Called Quest. She does this while remaining utterly contemporary, as if modern R&B production moved her, as if revisiting her classic past sounds was never considered. There’s a wide range of material, but the plush and yearning ballads — “Love Starved,” “The Long Play,” “Carte Blanche,” and the “Shadow Boxing”-alluding “Definition of Down” — resonate the most. No other artist combined such strong streetwise attitude with disarming warmth. She did it from start to finish.

Tracklist:
1-01. Teena Marie – Luv Letter (Album Version) (04:37)
1-02. Teena Marie – Sweet Tooth (Album Version) (05:36)
1-03. Teena Marie – Rare Breed (Album Version) [feat. Alia Rose & Ty James] (04:37)
1-04. Teena Marie – Love Starved (Album Version) (04:44)
1-05. Teena Marie – Definition Of Down (Album Version) (04:48)
1-06. Teena Marie – Maria Bonita (Album Version) (05:15)
1-07. Teena Marie – Beautiful (For Alia) (Album Version) (05:43)
1-08. Teena Marie – The Long Play (Album Version) (06:29)
1-09. Teena Marie – Carte Blanche (Album Version) (05:16)
1-10. Teena Marie – Give Me Your Love (Album Version) [feat. Alia Rose] (04:56)
1-11. Teena Marie – Wild Horses (Album Version) (05:17)
1-12. Teena Marie – The Perfect Feeling (Album Version) (05:49)

Personnel:
Teena Marie, vocals, keyboards
Doug Grigsby, guitar, keyboards
Stan Davis, guitar, keyboards, percussion, drum programming
David Starks, guitar
Wali Ali, guitar
Ray Fuller, guitar
Morris O’Connor, guitar
Jeanette Harris, woodwinds, brass, horns
William Artope, horns
John Bokowski, keyboards
Brian Kilgore, percussion
James Allen, drum programming
Alia Rose, vocals
Verline Beard, vocals
Demetrice O’Neal, vocals
Tracy Hazzard, vocals
Bridgette Bryant, vocals
Recorded at Rosie’s Room, Pasadena, CA.
Engineered by Erik Zobler

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