What better song from my memories and the Billboard charts of 1983 could I pull out for today, May 1, May Day, Beltane, etc., than this one? I can't imagine. "Mornin'" isn't Al Jarreau's biggest or most enduring pop hit, but it stood out like a glorious flower in the midst of the raucous garden of radio noise of the spring of 1983 (it hit its chart peak in the month of May that year), and thus has always been a bit of of favorite of mine.
By 1983, and certainly in the wake of Michael Jackson, the music of Black artists that wanted to record a pop hit was almost entirely to confined to them working, and reworking, traditional R&B and soul forms in line with the post-disco dance and club beats and riffs that Jackson had proved to be a gold mine. You had some Black rockers that didn't quite fit that mold (Prince most obviously), and some which defined whole genres just through their pop genius (Stevie Wonder) but if you start running through the rest of the list--El DeBarge, Donna Summer, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, etc.--you can certainly see a pattern. Which makes the fact that Al Jarreau's smooth jazz vocal stylings could find a home on the radio that much more impressive. His was a different kind of sophistication, a bit of easy-going, romantic, multicultural cosmopolitanism that didn't have a drop of post-punk in it; it was it's own thing. So listen up, and do your own thing as well. As the rhyme goes, first of May, first of May, outdoor...etc.
