Maxi Priest "Close To You"

Album: Bonafide (Charisma; 1990)
Songwriters: Gary Benson, Maxi Priest and Winston Sela
R&B Peak Position: #2

"Tellin’ mi lies when the truth was clear/ I think she knew what I wanted to hear..."

London-born Maxi Priest spent much of the '80's serenading his fellow Brits with a seducing brand of reggae-inflected R&B/ Pop, but it wasn't until his lively 1988 cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World" that he started garnering increased attention in the States. Only a couple short years later, Priest returned an even bigger American success, reaching the top of the US Pop chart with the 1990 romancer "Close To You".

Pure soul intoxication (it's slow jam groove envelops your entire body in a kinky essence), "Close To You" sees Maxi caught under a fatal attraction spell with some luscious, "Brixton queen": "I just wanna be close to you/ And do all the things you want me to," he silkily sighs on the chorus.

Girl must be quite a fox to render him submissive to her every desire by him just breathing her breath. The power she holds over him is so strong that Maxi can't help but admit to being a little freaked out, going so far as too conclude that she has to be some kind of Devil spawn to be able to trap him in such a tizzy ("With the full moon rising, I was scared/ I think I must be possessed").

Released as the lead-off cut from Maxi's fourth album, Bonafide, "Close To You" delivered another fine dose of the much-appreciated sophisticated R&B sound the UK was dishing out on a regular basis at the time (Listening to it, it wouldn't be hard to imagine it being the type of material Marvin Gaye would have recorded if he was still alive). While Priest would never achieve another American hit of it's stature, the singer didn't necessarily disappear from the US airwaves, either. Over the next few years, he scored winners through collaborations with Shabba Ranks ("Housecall") and Roberta Flack ("Set The Night To Music") and in 1996, climbed into the US Top 20 one last time with the Shaggy-featured "That Girl".

Best Moment: The hurried bits of strings that flicker in and out of the track.



DL: "Close To You" (YFH)