DeBarge was a sibling music group of American origin whose repertoire included R&B, soul, funk, pop, adult contemporary, and gospel. Active as a professional recording group from 1979 and 1989, the group was one of the few recording acts to bring success to the Motown label during the 1980s.

Overview[link]

Background[link]

Hailing from Detroit and later from Grand Rapids, Michigan, the group is named for their shared surname, and included sister Bunny and the brothers Mark (or "Marty"), Randy, Eldra (or "El"), and James.Younger siblings Chico, Darell, and Carol "Peaches" DeBarge are also singers (though they were not with the group), with El later becoming a solo star in his own right. Two older brothers, Robert Jr. (Bobby) and Tommy, were members of another popular Motown group named Switch. The DeBarges signed with the Motown record label in the 1970s, and became one of their few successful acts during the 1980s.

The band had a string of R&B and pop hits in the early to mid-1980s, including "All This Love," "I Like It," "Love Me in a Special Way," and "Rhythm of the Night." Many of these hits were ballads, spreading the band's appeal into the adult contemporary market as well. However, in 1986, both El and Bunny DeBarge left for solo careers. The remaining brothers soldiered on with their older brother Bobby (who'd long since left Switch) now joining the band to release the album Bad Boys in 1987, but it didn't achieve nearly the success of previous releases. Meanwhile, El went on to have a moderately successful solo career, and Bunny would score a minor hit with "Save the Best for Me (Best of Your Lovin')" from her only solo album before being abruptly dropped by her label. Overall, DeBarge released nine Top 40 R&B singles, five top 40 pop singles, two pop top ten hits, five top ten R&B singles, two number-one R&B singles, a number-one single on the dance chart and three number-one hits on the adult contemporary chart.

History[link]

Early years[link]

The members that eventually became DeBarge started performing in various groups together in the Grand Rapids area in the mid-1970s. In 1977, brothers Randy, Mark and El were being mentored by members of the Motown group Switch, including their elder brothers Tommy and Bobby and co-founding member and family friend Gregory Williams. By 1979, Bunny DeBarge had joined her younger brothers and they formed as The DeBarges. That year, Williams sent a demo of the siblings' work to Motown CEO and founder Berry Gordy, who was impressed by the group and agreed to sign them that year, sending them to California. For a year, the group worked alongside members of Switch, helping to add background vocals, instrumentation, arranging, and musical and lyrical composition to the band's works, much prominently, "I Call Your Name", "My Friend in the Sky", and "Love Over and Over Again".

By 1981, Bobby DeBarge and Tommy DeBarge had left Switch and returned the favor to their siblings working with them on their debut album, which was released that year with Bobby, Bunny, and El as its main producers. One single, the Randy-led ballad "What's Your Name", failed to chart.

Success[link]

In 1982, they included their 18-year-old brother James into the lineup and worked on their sophomore album, All This Love, produced by El and Iris Gordy. The album launched them into R&B stardom with the records "I Like It" and "All This Love". Both songs also became crossover pop hits with "All This Love" later going to number one on Billboard's adult contemporary chart. In 1983, the group made an impression after appearing on Motown 25, where they performed alongside High Inergy. Their performance together ended in a standing ovation. Later in 1983, the group issued their third album, In a Special Way, which spawned two further hit singles, "Time Will Reveal" and "Love Me In a Special Way". Like All This Love before it, the album reached gold status in the United States.

Following that album's success, DeBarge were handpicked by Luther Vandross to open for him on his "Busy Body Tour" to support his album of the same name. Vandross discovered the band's popularity while waiting for his set to begin, shocked at the attention the group got, which group members later compared to "Beatlemania" and Motown's early phenomenon, The Jackson 5, which DeBarge was molded to follow after by its staff. When the tour ended in late 1984, the group recorded the Diane Warren composition, "Rhythm of the Night", for the soundtrack to the Motown-produced film, Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon. The song was released in early 1985 and became a smash single, eventually reaching the top five in several countries, mainly in the US and UK, becoming the band's biggest-selling hit and their best-known hit. Sensing that El DeBarge was emerging as the "star" of the group, Motown mainly had El working on the group's next album primarily by himself, with the label failing to call on the other siblings' help. It's hinted Motown was fearful of the other members' growing dependencies to drug addiction, only trusting El as he seemed to be the most reliable. In 1984, James DeBarge made headlines when he secretly eloped with Janet Jackson of the famed Jackson family. Their marriage was annulled the following year.

The Rhythm of the Night album became the band's best-selling work, going platinum and featuring further hits such as "Who's Holding Donna Now" and "You Wear It Well". Following the end of its promotion, both El and Bunny DeBarge departed from the group after Motown offered them solo deals. The rest of the DeBarges were dropped from Motown in 1986.

Decline[link]

Failing to find deals with major labels, the rest of the DeBarges, with Bobby now joining the fold, signed with the independent Striped Horse Records in 1987, later releasing what turned out to be their final studio album, Bad Boys. Striped Horse had problems promoting the album and without the help of Motown, the album tanked. DeBarge continued their career into 1988, even bringing along younger brother Chico (then riding off the success of his hit "Talk to Me"), with them. The brothers made a guest appearance on Punky Brewster in 1988. That same year, Bobby and Chico DeBarge were arrested for drug trafficking in their native Grand Rapids hometown. They were eventually convicted of drug charges and sentenced to two different prisons to serve their sentences. The arrests and subsequent convictions brought an end to DeBarge as a musical group and they disbanded at the end of the eighties. In 1991, Randy and James contributed to a gospel album featuring their mother Etterlene and younger siblings Darryl (Young DeBarge) and Carol (Peaches DeBarge).

The group's since highly-publicized drug addictions have been well documented with several members serving jail time for drug offenses. The siblings have continued to perform together on some occasions. In 2011, members James, Randy and Bunny appeared on Dr. Drew's Lifechangers where they discussed their troubles with drug addiction, later agreeing to attend a rehabilitation facility. While Randy and James left the facility on a follow-up episode, Bunny DeBarge still attends and told Dr. Drew of her recovery on the follow-up episode later performing a gospel song on the show. El DeBarge returned from a 16-year sabbatical of releasing solo albums following a period of drug addiction and several arrests with the well-received Grammy-nominated album, Second Chance. The group members have suffered several setbacks and tragedies over the years brought on by drug abuse: Bobby DeBarge died at a hospice in Grand Rapids after contracting AIDS after years of heroin addiction, Tommy DeBarge, who also suffered drug addiction, is under kidney dialysis but has nonetheless continued to perform, sometimes with surviving members of Switch and with his family members, Randy DeBarge and Mark DeBarge are said to have "incurable diseases" according to their mother. James DeBarge recently was sentenced to prison for drug offenses. DeBarge's story of their rise and fall was documented in late 2008 as the debut episode of the TV One show, Unsung.

Legacy[link]

Though DeBarge never fully recovered from their 1986 fallout, the group's classic Motown material has been either frequently sampled or covered over the years. Their collaborations with Switch on their recordings, "I Call Your Name" and "My Friend in the Sky" have been sampled as well as their own material, including "I Like It", "Stay with Me" and "A Dream".

Some of the most prominent samples of DeBarge's material including The Notorious B.I.G.'s remix of "One More Chance", which sampled "Stay With Me". Mary J. Blige, a fan of DeBarge, has also sampled and covered their work, including "Share My World" (adding the group's intro ad-libs from that song on her song of the same name), "A Dream" and "Don't Go" (which interpolated the ending of "Stay With Me"). Rapper Tupac Shakur interpolated the melody of "A Dream" for his posthumous hit, "I Ain't Mad at Cha", just little over a few months later, R&B group Blackstreet sampled the song's music for their hit, "Don't Leave Me". Blackstreet were big fans of DeBarge (Teddy Riley called El DeBarge a living legend on the liner notes of Blackstreet's 1994 debut album) and had covered "I Like It". On their platinum album, Another Level, the group did a gospel version of DeBarge's hit "Time Will Reveal".

In 1998, Riley sampled parts of Switch's "My Friend in the Sky" (co-composed by Bobby, Bunny and El) for rapper Queen Pen's album track, "No Hooks" off her My Melody album. The same song would be sampled in 2005 for Raheem DeVaughn's title track off The Love Experience. The melody of "Stay With Me" was revisited by Ashanti on her single, "Foolish" while the melody of "A Dream" has been constantly sampled following the recordings of "I Ain't Mad at Cha" and "Don't Leave Me". "I Like It" is their most sampled, with several acts sampling the music or interpolating the song's popular bridge (sung by El and written by Bunny). In 2007, Rich Boy's hit "Throw Some D's" sampled Switch's "I Call Your Name", which was co-written by Bobby and arranged by Bobby and El. "All This Love" has also been covered and sampled frequently by other artists in both R&B and hip-hop.

Personnel[link]

• Etterlene "Bunny" DeBarge (1979–1986): vocals
• Mark "Marty" DeBarge (1979–1989): vocals, trumpet, saxophone
• William "Randy" DeBarge (1979–1989): vocals, bass guitar
• Eldra "El" DeBarge (1979–1986): vocals, piano/keyboards
• James DeBarge (1982–1989): vocals, piano/keyboards
• Bobby DeBarge (1987–1988): vocals

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

• ^A Songs are credited as El DeBarge with DeBarge.

See also[link]

	Book: DeBarge
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
• Kristinia DeBarge

References[link]

External links[link]

• DeBarge biography and updates at Soul Tracks
• DeBarge History - The early days
• The DeBarge Network
• DeBarge at Allmusic

Eldra Patrick "El" DeBarge ^[1] (born June 4, 1961) is an American R&B/pop singer-songwriter, known as the lead singer and co-founder of the R&B/soul music family group DeBarge throughout the early to mid-1980s. As a solo artist, he is best known for the hits "Who's Johnny" and "Love Always" and for his collaborations with Tone Loc, Quincy Jones, Fourplay and DJ Quik. DeBarge is a three-time Grammy nominee.^[2][3]

Life and career[link]

Early life[link]

A native of Detroit, Michigan, El was the sixth of ten children born to Robert Louis DeBarge, Sr. (1932–2009) and Etterlene (née Abney) DeBarge. DeBarge was already singing in his local church choir and playing piano as a child. Later after his family moved to Grand Rapids, he and the rest of his family began performing at their uncle's Pentecostal church. At thirteen, his parents divorced after a difficult and stormy marriage. El is of African American, English, French Canadian and Native American descent. Growing up, he was closest to eldest brother Bobby and began imitating his brother's vocal styling.

For several years, El spent time being in private study with music educator Ricky Callier. By 1975, El had begun to express a desire to become a performer. El became a father for the first time at fifteen. He would eventually father eleven children. In 1977, he dropped out of high school and began performing with his elder brothers in clubs and venues in Michigan. That year, Gregory Williams, a member of brother Bobby's group, Switch began mentoring El and brothers Marty and Randy, helping to record early recordings as part of the SMASH imprint. By 1979, eldest sister Bunny joined her brothers and Williams sent a demo of the siblings' recordings to Motown CEO Berry Gordy, who immediately signed the group, then known as The DeBarges, to the label.

Motown mentored them with members later working and contributing songwriting, arrangements and production to the recordings of Switch, including the 1980 albums, This Is My Dream and Reaching for Tomorrow. El DeBarge's first professional recording was as background vocalist to Switch's 1979 hit, "I Call Your Name". He later helped to arrange music for several Switch songs including "Love Over and Over Again" and "My Friend in the Sky", which he, Bunny and Bobby wrote. The song later would be sampled by the likes of Queen Pen and Raheem DeVaughn.

Music career[link]

In 1981, The DeBarges was released after the family had worked in the studio for a year recording it. The album was noted for most of its songs produced and written by all four family members including Bobby DeBarge, who helped end the album track, "Queen of My Heart" after El had led the song for most of its tenure. The following album, 1982's All This Love featured younger brother James and saw much success with the compositions, "I Like It" and the title track. El would remain the producer and arranger for all of the group's Motown albums.

In 1983, DeBarge released In a Special Way, which spawned the hits "Time Will Reveal" and "Love Me in a Special Way" and in 1984, the band became a sensation while touring for Luther Vandross on the singer's Busy Body tour. Though the group enjoyed much success and appeared to be a family unit, there was growing tensions between El and his brothers mainly because of Motown's push to have El become the only noted star of the group, repeating a pattern that began with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. By the end of the tour, El DeBarge was mainly called to handle the production of DeBarge's next album, Rhythm of the Night, without much help from his siblings.

Rhythm of the Night became the group's best-selling album ever though some contended that El DeBarge was the only member present on the album with the exception of the title track, which became a top five hit in several countries including the US and UK becoming the group's and El's signature song. In 1986, El DeBarge left the group and began his solo career with the release of his self-titled debut album, which spawned the hits, "Who's Johnny" and "Love Always". Three years passed, however, until DeBarge released his second album, Gemini in 1989. The album was a failure and DeBarge's contract with Motown was terminated in 1990 and he signed with Warner Bros.. In the meantime, DeBarge was featured on the Quincy Jones single, "The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)", alongside Al B. Sure!, James Ingram and Barry White, released in 1990.

In 1992, DeBarge released his third album, the Maurice White-produced In The Storm, which featured the Chante Moore duet, "You Know What I Like", which was Moore's first professional recording. Critics noted the album for its Marvin Gaye-styled productions, with El DeBarge later admitting that Gaye was a huge influence on his musical style. He once commented that he had initially written "All This Love" as a song he imagined Gaye doing, even imitating Gaye's ad-libs during his I Want You era near the end. That same year, he had chart success on the R&B charts with a collaboration with Fourplay on their version of Gaye's "After the Dance". DeBarge's next album, 1994's Heart, Mind and Soul, was co-produced with Babyface, yielding modest charted singles such as "Slide" and "Where is My Love" (which featured Babyface on duet vocals).

While DeBarge continued to collaborate on other artists' projects including brother Chico and rapper DJ Quik among others (the duo collaborated on Quik's hit "Hand In Hand"), he didn't release any more albums between 1994 and 2009. In 2010, he finally emerged from a sixteen-year delay with the appropriately titled Second Chance, released after a series of comeback performances and appearances including a well received performance at the 2010 BET Awards. The album yielded two singles, "Second Chance" and the Faith Evans duet "Lay With You", and later resulted in three Grammy Award nominations: Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song,^[2] and Best R&B Album.^[3] He remains the only member of the DeBarges to have Grammy nominations outside of the group and in the family altogether.

Personal life[link]

El was raised in Detroit and Grand Rapids as a child. El's parents had a tumultuous marriage that involved domestic abuse and child abuse on the part of El's father Robert. El has remained mum on his relationship with his father and many other elements of his family life, later documented in books written by his mother Etterlene, sister Bunny and brother Tommy. In 1976, El DeBarge became a father to his first child, a daughter named Adris. He eventually went on to father eleven children altogether. He had a set of twins that died from Dallas, Texas. El was close to his siblings, particularly his brothers Bobby and Chico. Bobby DeBarge's death in 1995 had a profound effect on El, family members later saying he has never fully recovered from Bobby's death. Since Bobby's death, he has performed several of Bobby's songs with Switch onstage, sometimes with Chico DeBarge singing along. El and several DeBarge brothers reunited in 1998 performing several DeBarge classics. El currently lives in Los Angeles.

Legal problems and drug addiction[link]

In 2001 he was arrested for cocaine possession and was given probation. In 2006 he was arrested again for possession of a controlled substance and was once again given probation. In 2007 he was arrested in a domestic dispute and was held without bail. The charges were later dropped. Later that year he was arrested yet again and charged with cocaine possession and given probation again. However, he was once again arrested in 2008 for possession of crack and drug paraphernalia, breaking the terms of his probation. For this violation he was immediately sentenced to two years in federal prison in California.

El has had a history of drug abuse. He stated that his addiction started after he began receiving prescription medication for toothache pain after having a tooth pulled by a dentist. Up until then, El DeBarge had been seen as reliable, especially in comparison to his siblings, whose accounts of drug abuse started during the tenure of the group. By the mid-1990s, El had become addicted, and his addiction resulted in his career faltering after its peaks in the 1980s. Following a prison sentence in which he served two years, El declared himself born again and announced that he had found sobriety after an addiction that he said had lasted nearly 25 years, stating he had also acknowledged his problems with the law in the past.

However in February 2011, while promoting Second Chance, DeBarge's label announced that the singer was canceling all public dates and appearances as he went back to rehab following a relapse.^[4] DeBarge has since returned to work and made an appearance at the 54th Grammy Awards in February 2012. He had failed to appear at the previous Grammy Awards due to his drug relapse.

On March 20, 2012, El was arrested in Encino for possession and sale of narcotics.^[5] The singer, however, will not be charged because a Los Angeles district attorney found insufficient evidence.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

Featured singles[link]

See also[link]

• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• "Heart & Soul: El DeBarge 2010 Interview". http://www.soulmusic.com/elde20in.html. 

Kristinia DeBarge ( /krɪˈstɪniə/; born March 8, 1990) is an American singer-songwriter. She first appeared on national television in 2003 as a contestant on the American Idol spin-off, American Juniors. In 2009, DeBarge signed a contract with the Island Records department Sodapop, releasing her debut album Exposed in July of the same year. The first single, "Goodbye", reached the top 20 in the US and Canada.