Biography
Vincent Brantley joined forces with Rick Timas to co-author, co-produce, and perform every instrument on New Edition’s “Cool It Now,” a million-selling single that topped the R&B chart and reached number four on the pop side. The pair had long sought to place “Cool It Now” with New Edition after the group signed to MCA Records, where earlier Maurice Starr productions on Streetwise Records such as “Candy Girl” had already brought success. Unable to connect with MCA vice president Jheryl Busby, Brantley and Timas first tried the song with an older act, yet the fit proved wrong. Chance intervened one night when the two left their South Central Los Angeles home studio in search of late-night food and spotted Busby’s car on Crenshaw Boulevard. They followed him to a chicken outlet, where Brantley sang the lyrics over a cassette playing through the car stereo. Busby arranged an introduction the next day at Ray Parker Jr.’s studio with New Edition’s manager Bill Dern, who approved the track and assigned production to Brantley and Timas. Their first MCA single, “Cool It Now,” climbed to number one R&B and number four pop on Billboard’s listings by late 1984. The accompanying New Edition album occupied the R&B summit for five weeks, peaked at number six pop, and moved more than two million copies while also housing the number-one R&B hit “Mr. Telephone Man” (produced by Ray Parker Jr.), “Lost in Love,” “My Secret (Didja Gitit Yet?),” and “Kinda Girls We Like.” Brantley and Timas next guided New Edition’s “Count Me Out,” a number-two R&B single for two weeks, plus the album tracks “Let’s Be Friends” and “Kickback” on the platinum-certified All For Love, which reached number three R&B. Additional Brantley/Timas songs included “Divas Need Love Too,” a 1987 hit for Klymaxx on Constellation/MCA, “Birds of a Feather” and “I’ll Educate You (On My Love)” for Sugar Babes on MCA, and “Back to Back” for Detroyt on Tabu/CBS. Brantley also co-wrote “Everlasting Love”—distinct from the Robert Knight/Carl Carlton/Rex Smith favorite—for Angela Bofill, “Strokin’” for Dynasty, “Right Here” for Shalamar, “Not Just Another Lover” for the Spinners, and “In Motion” for Freda Payne. A Vincent Brantley-related project is the soundtrack to Butter. ~ Ed Hogan