Kirk Whalum
in H. Johnson’s magazine, Ebony Man
Aside from the musical elements of his 1958 birthplace, Memphis, Tennessee… those influences came from a strong musical family. Whalum grew up singing in the choir of Memphis’ Olivet Baptist Church, where his father, Kenneth Whalum, Sr., was pastor (as well as a Memphis City Councilman). Following suit, Kirk Whalum also became an ordained minister, and received a Masters of Art in Religion. At an early age, Kirk also learned music from his grandmother, Thelma Twigg Whalum, a piano teacher, and from two uncles who performed with jazz bands around the country.
Whalum began on drums, not initially drawn to jazz, but changed to saxophone while attending Memphis’ Melrose High School. “I was coerced into the jazz program,” he told Grammy Foundation online. “The teacher welcomed me and said he had heard I was gifted, and that he’d like to see me in the jazz program. And I said, ‘no, thanks.’ I was 15 – what did I know? So I didn’t choose it, but I knew from the first rehearsal that this was the music I wanted to play.”
He attended Texas Southern University in Houston where he was a member of TSU’s renowned Ocean of Soul Marching Band. A car accident while attending Texas Southern became a turning point for Whalum, who decided that God plans for him beyond the department store job he had just accepted. “He wanted me to make music,” Whalum recalled. “Whatever the cost.” He actually didn’t have to wait long for his first big break. After opening for keyboardist Bob James at a concert in 1983, James asked Whalum to appear on his album, 12. James also recorded one of Whalum’s original compositions, “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” that Whalum had written for his wife, Rubystyne (or Ruby) Whalum. Kirk and Bob also received a Grammy nomination for their collaboration album, Joined at the Hip.
In 1985, Whalum signed with Columbia Records. His first album, Floppy Disk, was released that same year. That debut album was followed by two more albums produced by Bob James, 1988’s And You Know That! And 1989’s The Promise. In 1986, he performed at Jean Michel Jarre’s giant concerts Rendez-Vous Houston and Rendez-Vous Lyon. At each concert, he performed the track “Last Rendez-Vous,” also known as “Ron’s Piece,” in place of Jarre and Whalum’s mutual friend, saxophonist and astronaut Ron McNair, who died in the Challenger disaster.
He also began performing and recording with other artists, including Barbra Streisand, George Benson, Quincy Jones and Luther Vandross. He was featured on many Luther Vandross albums, most often playing on the singer’s covers of older pop and R&B standards such as “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “I (Who Have Nothing)”, and “Love Won’t Let Me Wait.” Whalum also worked on the soundtracks to the films The Prince of Tides (1991), Boyz in the Hood (1991), and Grand Canyon (1991).
Kirk Whalum became globally famous for his saxophone solo on Whitney Houston’s 1992 hit “I Will Always Love You,” originally performed by Dolly Parton. The song from the soundtrack of the movie, The Bodyguard, spent fourteen weeks on top of Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, becoming the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. Whalum later toured as Houston’s opening act for seven years. He recalled:
The same year as the Whitney Houston hit, Whalum moved his family to France. He told JazzTimes, “Being born and raised in Memphis, you kind of take for granted things that you grew up around. I couldn’t get away from Memphis music in Paris. I would be in a café, a little bistro, and there was the music: Al Green, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Elvis. I kept running into Memphis music.”
Whalum soon returned to the United States to capitalize on the popularity of the Houston hit. His first album in four years, Caché, was released in 1993. He released one more album on the Columbia label, In This Life (1995). His first album after signing with Warner Bros. Jazz was 1997’s Colors, which grew out of his experiences with racial and cultural diversity in the United States and abroad. Taking his interest a step further, Whalum founded a nonprofit organization, Hearts Against Racism and Prejudice (HARP) to promote tolerance and understanding across cultural barriers.
His best-selling 1998 contemporary jazz album, For You, included instrumental versions of many pop hits, including Mariah Carey’s “My All,” Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes,” as well as the Motown classic “I Want You.” That same year, he also returned to his spiritual roots with the release of 1998’s The Gospel According to Jazz, Chapter One (the series followed with Chapters 2, 3 and 4) and again with two 2001 releases, Hymns in the Garden and The Christmas Message.
In 2001 Whalum released Unconditional, an album that contained both original compositions by Whalum as well as covers of ‘N Sync’s “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You” and Macy Gray’s “I Try.” He told Billboard Magazine, “These songs are accessible to the public, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you think about Louis Armstrong or Count Basie, who have as much integrity as anyone who ever picked up an instrument, they played things that appealed to the public, things that would make people dance. That’s not a crime.”
In 2003, more than three years before relocating back to Memphis, Whalum paid homage to his hometown with the CD, Into My Soul. His tribute to the Memphis sound was produced by David Porter, who along with Isaac Hayes wrote songs in the 1960s for Stax recording artists like Sam & Dave and Johnnie Taylor. Recorded in Porter’s studio on famous Beale Street, the CD featured two of Whalum’s childhood heroes, Hayes and Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as Whalum’s childhood friend, drummer Blair Cunningham (Cunningham’s brother, Carl, was an original member of the Bar-Kays and was killed along with three other members of the band and Otis Redding in a December 1967 plane crash.) He chose the CD’s two cover songs well: the Porter/Hayes classic “Hold On! I’m Comin’” and Elvis’ first hit single, “That’s All Right.”
In 2005 Whalum recorded The Babyface Songbook which featured hits songs of R&B icon, Babyface, from the previous 15 years, including “Exhale (Shoop Shoop),” “I’ll Make Love to You,” “When Can I See You,” and others. That same year, he performed a cover of “Any Love” on the album Forever, For Always, For Luther, which covered many of Luther Vandross’ best-known songs. Whalum also contributed to the 2008 documentary film Miss HIV, which addressed the AIDs epidemic in Africa.
His musical accomplishments have brought him a total of 12 Grammy nominations, as well as three Dove Award nominations, an NAACP Image Award nomination, and he has won two Stellar Awards, Gospel music’s highest honor. He won his first Grammy award in 2011 for Best Gospel Song (“It’s What I Do”, featuring Lalah Hathaway) alongside lifelong friend and writer Jerry Peters. In 2010, The Soulsville Foundation, which operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the Stax Music Academy, named Kirk Whalum as its president and CEO.
Kirk Whalum
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