Peabo Bryson, a singer known for his tender and textured take on smooth grown-folks R&B, has passed away. Bryson, known as the "Voice Of Love," died at a Marietta, Georgia hospital on Tuesday after suffering a stroke earlier this year. He was 75.
Robert Peapo Bryson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and he got his start as a teenage backup singer for local group Al Freeman And The Upsetters. Singing backup for another touring group, Moses Dillard And The Tex-Town Display, Bryson was discovered during a recording session for Bang Records, the Atlanta soul label. Bryson produced and wrote for Bang artists in the '70s, and he sang lead on 1975's "Do It With Feeling," a minor disco hit for the Michael Zagler Band. But while Bryson was comfortable singing uptempo music, he really came into his own as a balladeer on his 1976 debut album Peabo.
After that first album, Bryson signed with Columbia, and he wrote and produced his own quiet storm single "Reaching For The Sky," a top-10 R&B hit in 1978. In the '80s, Bryson really found his lane as a singer of romantic duets, making hits with singers like Natalie Cole, Minnie Riperton, and Melissa Manchester. In 1983, Bryson and Roberta Flack joined forces for Born To Love, an album of duets, and their song "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" crossed over and reached #16 on the Hot 100. A year later, Bryson reached #10 with "If Ever You're In My Arms Again," a solo track with backing vocals from Richard Marx. On those sleek ballads, Bryson exulted in softness, mastering a certain lane of confident sensitivity that made him a consistent force on Black radio.
In the early '90s, Bryson found his greatest pop success as an interpreter of Disney ballads. First, Bryson teamed up with a very young Céline Dion to record the title song from the animated smash Beauty And The Beast. At the time, Disney would hire pop singers to re-record their soundtrack songs so that they'd get radio play. It worked for "Beauty And The Beast," and the song reached #9. A year later, Bryson and Regina Belle recorded the pop version of the Aladdin song "A Whole New World," which went all the way to #1 — one of only two songs from Disney musicals ever to top the Hot 100. He won Grammys for both of those songs.
Bryson only made one more big hit, reaching #25 with the 1993 Kenny G collab "By The Time This Night Is Over." In 2003, the IRS seized much of his property to pay the back taxes that he owed. But Bryson kept working. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced Bryson's 2018 album Stand For Love, and he released his final LP Grace earlier this year.
"With a heavy heart, I share the loss of my dear friend and duet partner, Peabo Bryson," Belle wrote on Instagram. "Thank you for the music, the memories, and the magic."
“I’m heartbroken to hear that we lost Peabo Bryson today,” Dion wrote. “His incredible voice and his kind spirit embodied the beauty of song and performance. He was so wonderful and generous to me all those years ago, when we recorded 'Beauty and the Beast.' He made me so comfortable, as I was just learning to sing in English.”
Check out some of Bryson's work below.
