Hamilton, Anthony

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Hamilton, Anthony

1971—

Vocalist

Vocalist Anthony Hamilton managed to retain "the pre-rap values of old soul" without making his music sound "retro," according to Jim Farber of the Buffalo News. Hamilton's sound, Farber concluded, was instead "wholly contemporary." Hamilton himself described his sound as "Raw, uncut, whoop-that-ass cornbread, straight to the point authentic" to Vanessa Craft of Darkerthanblue.com. Hamilton's unique sound took a while to catch on, and a combination of bad luck and music-industry uncertainty about how to market Hamilton as an artist impeded his progress for years. In the mid-2000s, however, Hamilton's passionate classic soul vocals and elegant falsetto finally conquered radio and music sales charts. With a downhome image completely at odds with the high fashions and jewelry favored by other top African-American male stars in the R&B and hip-hop fields, Hamilton showed that older styles of African-American music remained vital in the 21st century.

A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Anthony Hamilton was born on January 28, 1971. His "gritty voice," noted Farber, "could only come from someone reared below the Mason-Dixon line." Hamilton agreed, telling

Farber that "I got whooped by a big ole country belt." His religious family allowed very little secular music in the house—only Elvis Presley and the country-themed television comedy show Hee Haw—but there was plenty of music in church. Hamilton's musical career started at age ten in his church choir. Although his recordings rarely have religious content (and "Preacher's Daughter" took direct aim at the behavior of some ministers), Hamilton told Ebony that "[m]y gospel roots are embedded in me, so it's hard to separate it from my music. It's a solid part that will never change." A great deal of the religious influence on Hamilton came from his grandmother, whom he saw collapse and die while she was frying fish.

Gained Life Experience

After he finished high school, Hamilton embarked on a career as a barber. That too helped him understand the world. "It was the best experience, man, getting to work in a place like that," he told classic soul vocalist and major influence Bill Withers in an Interview magazine conversation. "If you're a young man and you're about to go off into the world, go to the barbershop and just listen. Sit back and take notes." For a short time, he told Ebony, he dealt drugs, but hated it: "It was a dead end. A road with no future. Besides, I couldn't stand seeing people weakened by a substance." In the early 1990s he moved to Englewood, New Jersey, near New York City. He fathered two children, one in Charlotte during his teen years, and one after his move, and he continued to be involved with them later in life. Hamilton married gospel singer Tarsha McMillian in 2005, and she brought a son to what became a blended family of three children.

Hamilton had sung in talent shows as a teenager. After his relationship with his sons' mother broke up, he moved from Englewood to New York's Harlem neighborhood. "I needed the energy. I needed to heal," he told Withers. For a period of several months he lived in his car. But Harlem's creative atmosphere did him good, and he began to make connections in the New York music industry. Hamilton's vocal style partially fit into the so-called new jack swing R&B subgenre of the day, and producer (and Charlotte native) Mark Sparks signed him to the Uptown label. As a labelmate to such stars as Mary J. Blige and the vocal group Jodeci, Hamilton plunged into work on recording his debut album.

Hamilton's first brush with the frustrating shifts of the recording industry came when Uptown went out of business, just as his first album was being readied for release. He then signed with MCA, the large label that had absorbed the remnants of Uptown, and he recorded a second album, XTC, in 1996. Paul Clifford of the All Music Guide raved that the album was "an absolutely stunning debut set…a superb fusion of '70s soul and '90s R&B." But with MCA itself in transition, and the Southern presence in African-American music far smaller than it would be a decade later, XTC was ignored by executives and given little promotional support. It faded away with little chart impact but was later rediscovered by Hamilton's new legions of fans in the mid-2000s.

Overcame Setbacks through Hard Work

Refusing to give up despite these setbacks, Hamilton began to work as a songwriter (he eventually placed compositions on albums by Donell Jones and other artists) and as a backup vocalist. He recorded an album's worth of music for Sparks's Soulife label. In 2000 he backed neo-soul star D'Angelo on the latter's Voodoo tour, returning from his international travels to find that Soulife, too, had gone belly up. Two years later, however, Hamilton found the perfect outlet for his talents with a featured vocal slot on the single "Po' Folks" (from the album Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz), by the innovative Kentucky hip-hop group Nappy Roots. "When I got the connection with Nappy Roots, that was when I really started making noise," Hamilton told Craft. The recording garnered a Grammy award nomination in the growing Best Rap/Sung Collaboration category.

Performing "Po' Folks" at a Grammy lunch, Hamilton appeared not in tailored clothes but in the plain trucker's cap that had become his trademark. The simplicity carried a message. "I didn't shave or wear nice clothes—that was my protest," Hamilton told Lorraine Ali of Newsweek. "I was angry at the music industry for the mess they were putting on the radio. It was pretty and all dressed up, but it said nothin'! I came in as dusty as I could. That way, there was nothing to concentrate on but my music, and I sung it like it was my last shot." Hamilton won over the industry attendees was signed to Atlanta's So So Def label by producer Jermaine Dupri.

At a Glance …

Born January 28, 1971, in Charlotte, NC; married Tarsha McMillian (a gospel vocalist), 2005; children: Anthony, Tristen, Romeiro.

Career:

Charlotte, NC, barber, 1990s; Uptown label, recording artist (unreleased tracks), 1993(?)-95; MCA, recording artist, 1996-?; sideman and backup singer for various musicians, 1990s; Soulife label, recording artist and songwriter, 1999-2000; Nappy Roots, sang lead vocal on hit "Po' Folks," 2002; So So Def label, recording artist, 2003-.

Selected awards:

Grammy award nomination, for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (with Nappy Roots, for "Po' Folks"), 2003; Grammy award nominations, for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance, for Best R&B Song, and for Best Contemporary R&B Album, 2004; Grammy award nomination, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, 2005.

Addresses:

Label—So So Def Recordings, 1350 Spring St. NW, #750, Atlanta, GA 30309. Web—www.anthonyhamilton.com.

Often referred to as his debut, Hamilton's 2003 release Comin' from Where I'm From was actually his fourth album. On the strength of "Charlene," a classic soul ballad about a relationship that threatens to dissolve under the pressure of distance, the album rose into Billboard magazine's R&B/Hip-Hop top ten and brought Hamilton four new Grammy nominations (three in 2004 and one, for the later-released "Charlene" single, in 2005). The album went platinum in sales in 2004.

Developed Soulful Music

Many of Hamilton's songs, in contrast to the sensual bounce that dominated urban airwaves, dealt with the downsides of love and life, and some of them, evoking the music of 1970s vocalist Marvin Gaye, had social or political themes. "I…noticed, from your music, that you've been watching the world while you're living in it," Withers told the singer. A group of sides from the Soulife sessions was released (slightly tweaked in the studio) under the title Soulife in 2005 as Hamilton's popularity grew and he worked on material for his next album. Ain't Nobody Worryin' appeared on So So Def at the end of that year, and the serious tone of Hamilton's music intensified.

The album's title was not meant to indicate that people shouldn't worry, but rather that they weren't worrying enough. The title track was born when Hamilton visited his wife's hometown of Cleveland and saw the numerous closed schools in the troubled city. "And even at the schools that are still around, the kids are sharing books. How are you supposed to learn if you don't have a book to read?" he asked Withers. "So I just felt like I wanted to say something about it." The song "Pass Me Over" was about the death of one of Hamilton's friends. But Ain't Nobody Worryin' also contained a generous helping of love songs as well as "Sista Big Bones," a tribute to plus-sized women that provided a fine example of Hamilton's sense of humor.

By 2006 and 2007, Hamilton was earning comparisons to Withers, Al Green, Bobby Womack, and the other great soul artists of the 1970s. Yet he was never classified exclusively as a retro or old-school artist; the variety of producers he employed on his albums tended to create smooth sounds that set off his powerful voice and suggested the instrumental sounds of the 1970s rather than imitating them. "When you put on my music, you can feel like you're being taken care of, kids and parents too," Hamilton told Jet. "All I know is that when people hear me, they're hearing an old ‘familiar’ voice, something that sounds reminiscent of something, someone they heard back in the day. And all of them, the thugs, the young mothers, the old folks, the big Sistas, they all encourage me, they tell me, ‘Keep saying it!’" In 2007, Hamilton's cache of unreleased earlier material was raided once again for the release Southern Comfort on the Merovingian label. Hamilton's long trajectory toward stardom had allowed him to store-up years of material that he seemed to relish being able to finally share. "I'm thankful I was standing in the way when God was throwing out musical talent," Hamilton said in an artist's profile on the Music Life Entertainment Group's Singersroom.com. "I just wanna pass it on to the people and remain humble and shine a little bit…and smile."