Regina Belle was born in Englewood, New Jersey. Her early musical experience was in gospel music. She also studied trombone, tuba and steel drums and graduated from Dwight Morrow High School. In college at Rutgers University, she studied opera and jazz. She met the Manhattans and began working as their opening act. She even recorded a duet with them, “Where Did We Go Wrong.” her hard work earned her a record deal with Columbia Records. In 1987, she released her album All By Myself which featured the hit single “Show Me The Way” which reached #2 on the R&B charts. In 1989, Belle released her sophomore album, “Stay With Me”. Going gold, the album was packed with several strong and catchy songs. “Baby Come To Me”, the album’s first single, topped the R&B charts at # 1 and was followed by “What Goes Around” which reached #3. The album featured two additional popular singles, “This Is Love” which reached #7 and “Make It Like It Was” which was another #1 single on the R&B charts and #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Belle recorded a duet in 1991 with singing superstar Johnny Mathis, “Better Together” which appeared on his album Better Together: The Duet Album. Continuing her success with duets, Belle teamed up with Peabo Bryson for the song “A Whole New World” from the Aladdin Soundtrack. The song went gold and won the Grammy Award in 1993 for “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Unfortunately, the duet did not catapult Regina into Pop superstardom as Peabo’s duet with Celine Dion, “Beauty and the Beast” did. During the same year, Belle released her third album, “Passion”. Going Gold, the album featured the previously mentioned “A Whole New World”, “Dream In Colour and “If I Could” which reached #9 on the R&B charts. Both did well on the A/C chart. A fouth single, “The Deeper I Love” was released but it did not chart. After a five year hiatus without any original content released, Belle put out the album “Believe in Me” in 1998. If was much more of a commercial Urban contemporary album than any of her other albums. Although the album had two hit singles, the lead single being “I’ve Had Enough” (it was also remixed into a sizable dance music hit), the album didn’t met MCA Records sales goal. She was droped by MCA Record in 1999. In 2001, she released the album “This Is Regina!” which featured the sensual hit single, “Ooh Boy”. Another single was not lifted from the album. “This Is Regina!” went Gold. Belle is still active in the music industry and in 2004, released the album, “Lazy Afternoon”. In 2005, she had several successful concerts and apprances singing both new songs and older favourites. Regina Belle is not a well known figure by the Caucasion music audiences but should be since she is one of the highest quality Adult Contemporary/Pop singer to arise in recent times.| |
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