On her solo debut, "Love⦠A Fable in 9 Actsâ, Tracey Whitneyâs rich, sultry voice seduces and soothes, revealing a lifelong vocal mastery while steering clear of self-indulgence. A return to the soulful love songs of yesteryearâ¦

10 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Smooth Jazz, URBAN/R&B: Smooth Soul

Show all album songs: Love... A Fable In 9 Acts Songs


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Ray Charles didnât need to meet singer Tracey Whitney to know she was his ideal back-up vocalist. Called to audition for The Genius of Soulâs backing group The Raylettes, Tracey left her demo tape behind when Charles couldnât make their meeting. Later that afternoon, his management phoned to say sheâd landed the gig. âRay just listened to my tape and said, âSheâs got it,ââ Tracey recalls. âFour days later, I was onstage singing with him at the Hollywood Bowl.â

Luckily, Tracey was no stranger to the stage. At age 11, she debuted at the famed Coconut Grove in Los Angeles as a member of The Whitney Family, a group that included her seven brothers and sisters and their parents. For more than a decade, the Los Angeles-based singing sensations toured the world, recorded albums, and made guest appearances on numerous TV shows. âMy parents were both singers, and all of their eight kids came out singing,â she says. After leaving the family band, she continued performing locally and even spent five years singing in Japan.

After years of sharing the spotlight, Tracey Whitney is now taking center stage. On her solo debut, Love⦠A Fable in 9 Acts, her rich, sultry voice seduces and soothes, revealing her lifelong vocal mastery but never turning showy or self-indulgent. A return to the soulful love songs of yesteryear, the R & B-infused record celebrates romance and turns heartache into hope, prompting even the most jaded listener to believe in love again. Itâs a classic and timeless approach to songwriting that Tracey makes fresh and extraordinary with her infectious devotion to romance. âIâm inspired by songwriters who are doing something thatâs almost old-fashioned,â she says. âI want my music to tell a story.â

Like her much-revered influences Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, her songs tell tales of love lost and rediscovered, the exquisite pain and undeniable glory found in giving your heart to another. On the breezy and wistful âA Woman in Love,â for instance, we meet a heartbroken heroine who spends her days longing for her man to come back home. At the chorus, Tracey cautions, âYou better love your lady / And make it last forever,â a gentle warning that calls on all of us to praise the sacredness of love. By the next track, âWelcome to My Life,â she is serenading a newfound paramour, proclaiming her joy and rapture so ardently itâs impossible not to feel renewed and exhilarated. And Love⦠A Fable in 9 Acts certainly isnât lacking in the steamy side of soul and R & B either: In her cover of Barry Whiteâs âI'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More,â Tracey heats things up with a sophisticated sensuality that honors the originalâs irresistible luster and stirs in her own signature allure.

Throughout Love⦠A Fable in 9 Acts, Ms. Whitney entices and enchants with her stunning command of harmony, a vocal finesse first honed by her family (including an aunt who performed with Stevie Wonder) and later perfected in her work with Ray Charles. âWhen I first started singing with Ray, my harmonic sense was already very solid from performing with my family for so long,â says Tracey, who sang the fourth part in The Raylettesâ five-part harmony. âBut touring with him expanded my original concept of harmony, which had always been so valuable to me, and singing the fourth part forced me to hear bigger harmonies than Iâd originally heard in my head.â âWorking with Ray was tough, but Iâm so grateful for the experience.â

As executive-producer, vocal arranger/producer and writer, Ms. Whitneyâs Love⦠A Fable in 9 Acts features her co-producer Herman âHollywoodâ Dawkins on piano, synthesizers, and percussion, contributing producer & engineer Cario Johnson, her brothers Phillip on acoustic and electric guitars and Ray on acoustic guitar and bass, Tim Anderson on saxophone and Irene Scott on violin. The musicians grace the record with an elegant touch of jazz, a genre that Ms. Whitney always turns to for inspiration for her breathtaking harmonies. âI love John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and so many of the old jazz masters,â she says. âWhen I listen to their music, I keep going, âOoh, listen to that horn, or did you hear the chords that piano just played? Did you hear that guitar?â My love for jazz and my love for R & B female vocalists really come together to influence the melodies that I hear in my head.â

Like Sade, Tracey Whitney uses that jazz-inflected sound as a backdrop for her smooth vocal style, an intoxicating formula that sublimely complements her soul-affirming lyrics. For anyone fed up with what she calls the âwham, bam, thank you, maâamâ approach to pop music, Love⦠A Fable in 9 Acts should bring sweet relief. âWhat Iâm trying to create with my music is that old-school kind of romantic feel,â Tracey says. âIâm singing for people who want what I consider to be real songs, who need to hear that romance in their music again.â

Although she has spent the last two years in the studio working on Love⦠a Fable, her heart still belongs to the stage! Tracey is an outstanding performer in the style of yesteryear â one who delivers R&B, Pop, and Jazz vocal stylings equally - she has performed in nightclubs and hotels throughout Southern California, was a featured artist on London Weekend Televisionâs âThe Michael Barrymore Showâ for the Christmas special âBarrymore in Hollywoodâ, and from 1995 to 2000 Tracey performed a solo nightclub act in Tokyo, Yokohama & Tokushima Japan. While in Japan, she also performed (in concert and on television) with Japanese superstars Sing Like Talking, in addition to doing background vocal session work for Tokiku Katou and Namie Amuro.