Change

European disco and post-disco productions frequently paired American voices with European studio teams, and Donna Summer’s landmark sessions with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte remain the era’s clearest benchmark. Change stands among the more distinctive yet comparatively neglected outfits to emerge from that transatlantic wave in the early 1980s. Guadeloupian producer Jacques Fred Petrus and Italian partner Mario Malavasi guided the project, which first surfaced with the 1980 single “The Glow of Love,” a wistful, Chic-styled track spotlighting Luther Vandross. Between 1980 and 1985 the group placed twelve singles and six albums on the charts; two of those LPs reached the Top Ten of Billboard’s R&B Albums survey.

Petrus and Malavasi had already overseen several prior ventures—Macho, Midnight Band, Revanche, and Peter Jacques Band—before assembling Change. They enlisted guitarist Paolo Gianolio and bassist Davide Romani to lay down the instrumental core, then recruited an array of American lyricists and singers: Wayne Garfield (Roy Ayers, Candi Staton), Tanyayette Willoughby (Twennynine), Jocelyn Brown (Musique, Inner Life), and Luther Vandross (Chic, Gregg Diamond Bionic Boogie). The resulting album Glow of Love climbed to number ten on the R&B chart, carried by “Glow of Love” and “Searching” (both fronted by Vandross shortly before his solo breakthrough), “Angel in My Pocket” (an Italo-disco and Chic hybrid led by Brown), and “A Lover’s Holiday,” whose brisk group vocal became a Petrus signature later heard on records by High Fashion, the B.B. & Q. Band, and the Ritchie Family.

Material for the follow-up was initially sketched with Vandross in mind, yet contract disagreements prompted the arrival of James “Crab” Robinson, previously heard with Lonnie Liston Smith, Norman Connors, and Michal Urbaniak. Robinson took the lead role while Vandross contributed background vocals; female leads were shared among Brown (credited at the time as Jocelyn Shaw), Diva Gray, and Ullanda McCullough. Miracles, issued in 1981, matched the debut’s chart peak at number nine, its sleek yet rhythmically potent sound epitomized by the club-chart number-one run of “Paradise,” “Hold Tight,” and “Heaven of My Life.”

Subsequent sets Sharing Your Love (1982) and This Is Your Time (1983) largely maintained the existing template without notable advances, though each yielded modest hits. After Malavasi, Romani, and Robinson exited, Petrus recruited ex-Time members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis—then gaining momentum with the S.O.S. Band and Cheryl Lynn—to helm 1984’s Change of Heart. The title track, sung by Deborah Cooper, reached number seven on the R&B chart, while Rick Brennan delivered the midtempo standout “You Are My Melody,” which found greater favor abroad than at home.

Timmy Allen, already involved on Change of Heart, wrote three-quarters of the songs on 1985’s Turn on Your Radio and co-produced the album with Petrus. Its singles made limited impact, yet “Mutual Attraction” rivaled the year’s strongest advanced R&B outings from Maze’s “Twilight” to Loose Ends’ “Magic Touch,” while the ballad “You’ll Always Be Part of Me” echoed contemporaneous Jam and Lewis productions for the S.O.S. Band. The album closed the chapter of Change under Petrus; the producer was murdered in 1987 at his Guadeloupe villa by a disgruntled tourist denied entry to his nightclub earlier that night. Several years later, Romani joined other musicians and producers for another Change project whose sophisticated early-’90s R&B grooves remained unreleased until 2009, when the set appeared as Change Your Mind. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the group’s 1980–1985 catalog resurfaced in various editions on Rhino, Wounded Bird, and BBR.