Melba Moore

Singer and actor Melba Moore has moved fluidly across performance formats, musical styles, and eras. Since entering both live theater and recording studios in the middle of the 1960s, she first gained attention through a groundbreaking Broadway appearance in Hair, captured a Tony Award for her work in Purlie, and earned two Grammy nominations well before reaching her artistic and sales peak as a vocalist. Although she achieved a pair of Top 20 R&B successes in 1976 via the buoyant disco track “This Is It” and the powerful ballad “Lean on Me,” both created with Van McCoy, the four-octave vocalist found her strongest recognition during the following decade. Partnering primarily with Kashif, she emerged as a central figure in post-disco R&B, delivering notable singles such as “Love’s Comin’ at Ya” (1982) and the number-one “Love the One I’m With (A Lot of Love)” (1986). Even after redirecting much of her energy toward theater and film projects, including memorable turns in Les Misérables and the autobiographical one-woman show Sweet Songs of the Soul, she continued issuing both gospel and secular R&B recordings, among them the 2009 Phil Perry duets collection The Gift of Love and Forever Moore (2016).

Beatrice Melba Hill entered the world in New York City as the daughter of singer Bonnie Davis and saxophonist, bandleader, and Harlem club manager Teddy Hill. The pair’s joint performance can be heard on Davis’s 1943 chart-topping R&B single “Don’t Stop Now.” Formal exposure to the performing arts arrived for the future Melba Moore through dance instruction beginning at age four. Her stepfather, musician Clem Moorman—who would later record a duet album with Davis—later required her to study piano. After completing college, Moore worked as a music instructor, a role she found deeply satisfying, yet her interest in show business remained strong. She secured jingle and background vocal assignments, issued her first single on Musicor in 1966, and achieved major success in 1967 by joining the Broadway production of Hair. Replacing Diane Keaton, she became the first Black performer to assume a leading role previously played by a white actress on Broadway. Her next stage success, Purlie, brought the 1970 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. On Mercury Records, Moore came close to the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Got Love” from Purlie and received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, an award ultimately given to the Carpenters that year.

Following three Mercury albums—I Got Love (also issued as Living to Give, 1970), Look What You’re Doing to the Man (1971), and Melba Moore Live! (1972)—plus film and television appearances, Moore and her husband at the time formed Hush Productions to guide and produce other talent, later helping launch Freddie Jackson and Meli’sa Morgan. As Hush’s first signing, Moore moved to Buddah Records and released Peach Melba (1975), This Is It (1976), Melba (1976), and A Portrait of Melba (1977). The initial three projects registered on both the Billboard 200 and R&B charts. Her strongest singles from this period remained the Top 20 R&B entries “This Is It” and “Lean on Me,” written and produced by Van McCoy; the latter earned her a second Grammy nod, this time for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, ultimately awarded to Natalie Cole for “Sophisticated Lady.” Three further albums on Epic, among them another release titled Melba (1978), Burn (1979), and Closer (1980), featured a McFadden & Whitehead-produced rendition of the Bee Gees’ “You Stepped Into My Life,” Moore’s third Top 20 R&B single, which reached number five on the dance chart and nearly entered the Hot 100’s Top 40.

Moore enjoyed her most sustained commercial success on EMI and Capitol throughout the 1980s, working extensively with rising post-disco architect Kashif along with Paul Laurence and Morrie Brown. The resulting sequence—What a Woman Needs (1981), The Other Side of the Rainbow (1982), Never Say Never (1983), Read My Lips (1985), A Lot of Love (1986), and I’m in Love (1988)—yielded more than a dozen Top 20 R&B singles. Standouts included “Love’s Comin’ at Ya,” which finished one position short of the dance chart summit; the number-five Kashif duet “Love the One I’m With (A Lot of Love)”; and the consecutive R&B number ones “A Little Bit More,” a pairing with Freddie Jackson, and “Falling.” Her collaborations with Kashif, Laurence, and Brown captured the synthesizer-driven R&B sound that followed disco, though she also explored contrasting directions, as heard on the Grammy-nominated “Read My Lips” for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female. Soul Exposed (1990) closed her Capitol period with the Surface collaboration “Do You Really Want Me” and a star-studded take on “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” her final two hits for the label.

Although music eventually defined her public identity, Moore maintained an active presence in stage and screen productions, among them Timbuktu!, The Love Boat, Falcon Crest, Les Misérables, and her own short-lived sitcom, Melba. Theatrical work, especially Les Misérables and the autobiographical one-woman musical Sweet Songs of the Soul, dominated her schedule during the 1990s. She nevertheless found time for Happy Together (1996) alongside jazz pianist Lafayette Harris, Jr. and Solitary Journey (1999). The latter album prompted further gospel-focused releases such as I’m Still Here (2000), The Day I Turned to You (2002), and Nobody But Jesus (2004). Moore later reunited with Phil Perry for The Gift of Love (2009). In the following decade she issued Forever Moore (2016), marking her first solo secular album in nearly thirty years.