Tavares (band)
Encyclopedia
Tavares are a successful American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 R&B, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 and soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

 group, composed of five Cape Verdean
Cape Verdean
Cape Verdean may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to the country of Cape Verde* A person from Cape Verde, or of Cape Verdean descent. For information about the Cape Verdean people, see Demographics of Cape Verde and Culture of Cape Verde. For specific persons, see List of Cape Verdeans.*...

-American brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...

.

Band members

  • Ralph — Ralph Vierra Tavares (born December 10, 1941)
  • Pooch — Arthur Paul Tavares (born November 12, 1943)
  • Chubby — Antone Lee Tavares (born June 2, 1945)
  • Butch — Feliciano Vierra Tavares, Jr. (born May 18, 1948)
  • Tiny — Perry Lee Tavares (born October 24, 1949)

Biography and career

The Tavares brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts and whose parents were of Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

 descent, started performing in 1959 as Chubby and the Turnpikes when the youngest brother was 9 years old. Future Aerosmith
Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...

 drummer Joey Kramer
Joey Kramer
Joseph Michael "Joey" Kramer is the drummer for the American hard rock band Aerosmith....

 honed his funk chops as the "token white-guy drummer" in an early incarnation of Tavares. Chubby and The Turnpikes signed with Capitol records in 1967 and had a couple of local hit records including "I Know The Inside Story" in 1967 and "Nothing But Promises" in 1968. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/5938521/page/4 By 1973, they had changed their name to Tavares and scored their first R&B Top 10 (Pop Top 40) hit with "Check it Out" that same year, and soon began charting regularly on the R&B and pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 charts. Their first album included their brother Victor, who sang lead on "Check it Out", but dropped out of the group shortly after. In 1974 Tavares had a #1 R&B hit with Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...

' "She's Gone
She's Gone (Hall & Oates song)
"She's Gone" is a song written and originally performed by pop music duo Daryl Hall and John Oates. It was released as a single in 1974 from their album, Abandoned Luncheonette , and was moderately successful, peaking at #60 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.In 1974, the American R&B band Tavares...

," (which became a hit for Hall & Oates as well two years later). Tavares followed up that success with "Remember What I Told You to Forget."

1975 turned out to be their most successful year chart-wise, chalking up a Top 40 Pop album (In the City
In the City (Tavares album)
In the City is the third album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1975 on the Capitol label. Like the group's previous album Hard Core Poetry, it was produced by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and was well-received by critics...

) and their biggest hit, the Top 10 Pop/#1 R&B smash "It Only Takes a Minute
It Only Takes a Minute
"It Only Takes a Minute" is a 1975 song by Tavares. It would become the group's only Top 10 pop hit in the United States, peaking at #10. It also became their second #1 song on the American soul charts....

", which was later successfully covered by both Jonathan King
Jonathan King
Jonathan King is an English singer, songwriter, impresario and record producer. He is also the author of three novels, Bible Two and The Booker Prize Winner , and Beware the Monkey Man , and an autobiography, 65 My Life So Far .King first came to prominence as an...

 and Take That
Take That
Take That are a British five-piece vocal pop group comprising Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the lead singer and primary songwriter...

, and recently sampled by Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

.They parlayed this success into a spot as an opening act for the Jackson 5. KC and The Sunshine Band was also on this tour. This was followed by a string of hits: "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel
Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel
"Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" is a disco song written by Freddie Perren and Keni St. Lewis. It was recorded by the New England band Tavares in 1976. The song was released as a single from the album Sky High! and was split into two parts. The first part was 3 minutes and 28 seconds in length,...

" (1976), "Don't Take Away the Music" (1976), and "Whodunit
Whodunit (song)
"Whodunit", written by Keni St. Lewis and Freddie Perren, was a hit song for R&B/disco group Tavares in 1977. Released from their album, Love Storm it spent one week at number one on the R&B singles chart in May 1977, and peaked at number twenty-two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and in...

" (1977, another #1 R&B hit), among others. In 1977 they also recorded "I Wanna See You Soon", a duet with Capitol label mate Freda Payne
Freda Payne
Freda Charcilia Payne Some sources give a birth year of 1945, but this appears to be an error as all sources agree that she is older than her sister Scherrie, born 1944. is an American singer and actress best known for her million selling, 1970 hit single, "Band of Gold". She was also an actress in...

 which received airplay on BBC Radio 1 but failed to chart.

Many of their hits, however, underplayed their R&B background and gave the group the image of being a disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 act. This perception was reinforced by their appearance on the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...

in 1977. Tavares recorded the Bee Gees
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees are a musical group that originally comprised three brothers: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was successful for most of their 40-plus years of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a...

 track "More Than a Woman," and their version reached the Pop Top 40 that year. The soundtrack became one of the most successful in history, giving Tavares their only Grammy.

Later albums, such as Madam Butterfly
Madam Butterfly (album)
Madam Butterfly is the seventh album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, produced by Bobby Martin and released in 1979 on the Capitol label. By this stage in the group's career, they had become known as a disco act due to successful singles such as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel", "Whodunit" and...

and Supercharged
Supercharged (album)
Supercharged is the eighth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, produced by David Foster, Benjamin Wright and Bobby Colomby , and released in 1980 on the Capitol label...

, strayed from the disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 format and were less successful on the Pop chart (although they continued to have Top 10 R&B hits such as "Never Had a Love Like This Before" and the popular socio-political "Bad Times" written by British singer-songwriter Gerard McMahon
Gerard McMahon
Gerard McMahon is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer who specialises in creating music for films and TV...

). At the start of the 1980s, Tavares left Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

, signing with RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

. They had one last major hit, the ballad "A Penny for Your Thoughts", for which they were nominated for a Grammy in 1982, and their last major release was Words and Music in 1983.

In 1984, Ralph Tavares stepped down from the group, and Tiny left in the mid 1990s, but the other three brothers continue to tour. In early 2009, Tiny Tavares rejoined and is currently touring with the group.

"It Only Takes a Minute" was later covered by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 boy band
Boy band
A boy band is loosely defined as a popular music act consisting of only male singers. The members are expected to dance as well as sing, usually giving highly choreographed performances. More often than not, boy band members do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on...

 Take That
Take That
Take That are a British five-piece vocal pop group comprising Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the lead singer and primary songwriter...

, becoming a Top 10 UK hit, and is featured in the soundtrack of Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...

's dancing game Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix.

"Out of the Picture" was sampled by 50 Cent
50 Cent
Curtis James Jackson III , better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin and The Massacre . Get Rich or Die Tryin has been certified eight times platinum by...

 in his 2003 song "Many Men (Wish Death)".

Musician Feliciano "Flash" Vierra Tavares
Feliciano Vierra Tavares
Feliciano Vierra "Flash" Tavares Sr. was a Cape Verdean American musician, singer and guitar player based in Massachusetts. He was the patriarch of the musical Tavares family, which included the Tavares Brothers, a successful Grammy-winning 1970s and 1980s R&B band composed of five of Tavares' sons...

, the family patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

 and father of all five members of Tavares, died in 2008.

Chubby Tavares will release his first solo album in 2012 to coincide with the Tavares, Four Tops, Temptations UK tour.

Studio albums

Year Album Chart Positions Record Label
US
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

US
R&B
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...

UK
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

1974 Check It Out
Check It Out (album)
Check It Out is the debut album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1974 on the Capitol label. The album was produced by Johnny Bristol and was moderately successful, peaking at #20 on the R&B chart...

160 20 Capitol
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

Hard Core Poetry
Hard Core Poetry
Hard Core Poetry is the second album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1974 on the Capitol label. This album brought Tavares together with songwriters and producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter for what would prove to be a productive musical relationship on this and the group's...

121 11
1975 In the City
In the City (Tavares album)
In the City is the third album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1975 on the Capitol label. Like the group's previous album Hard Core Poetry, it was produced by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and was well-received by critics...

26 8
1976 Sky High!
Sky High! (album)
Sky High! is the fourth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1976 on the Capitol label. Their first album with Freddie Perren at the production helm, Sky High! includes R&B-flavored tracks of the kind for which the group had become known via their earlier albums, but is best...

24 20 22
1977 Love Storm
Love Storm
Love Storm is the fifth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, and the second to be produced by Freddie Perren, released in 1977 on the Capitol label...

59 15
1978 Future Bound
Future Bound
Future Bound is the sixth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, and the third and last to be produced by Freddie Perren, released in 1978 on the Capitol label. Critical reaction, whilst generally positive, tends to the view that Future Bound is one of the group's more lightweight albums...

115 55
1979 Madam Butterfly
Madam Butterfly (album)
Madam Butterfly is the seventh album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, produced by Bobby Martin and released in 1979 on the Capitol label. By this stage in the group's career, they had become known as a disco act due to successful singles such as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel", "Whodunit" and...

92 13
1980 Supercharged
Supercharged (album)
Supercharged is the eighth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, produced by David Foster, Benjamin Wright and Bobby Colomby , and released in 1980 on the Capitol label...

75 20
Love Uprising
Love Uprising
Love Uprising is the ninth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, produced by Benjamin Wright and released in 1980 on the Capitol label. It is the final album Tavares recorded for Capitol after an eight year association which covered their whole recording career to that date. The group would...

205
1981 Loveline
1982 New Directions
New Directions (Tavares album)
New Directions is the tenth album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1982. It is the group's first album for RCA following their departure from Capitol...

137 30 RCA
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

1983 Words and Music
Words and Music (Tavares album)
Words and Music is the eleventh and final album by American soul/R&B group Tavares, released by RCA in 1983. The album contains a top 10 R&B single in "Deeper in Love", and peaked at #48 on the R&B chart.- Track listing :# "Ten to One" - 6:06...

208 48
"—" denotes the album failed to chart

Compilation albums

Year Album Chart Positions Record Label
US
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

US
R&B
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...

UK
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

1977 The Best of Tavares 72 42 39 Capitol
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

1996 Capitol Gold: The Best of Tavares
1997 It Only Takes a Minute: A Lifetime with Tavares
1999 The Hits
2002 Classic Masters
2003 The Best of Tavares Collectables
Collectables Records
Collectables is a reissue record label founded in 1980 by Jerry Greene. Greene was previously associated with New York City's Times Square Record Shop, Philadelphia's Record Museum retail chain, and the Lost Nite and Crimson record labels....

2004 Anthology Capitol
"—" denotes the album failed to chart

Singles

Year Single Chart Positions
US
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

US
R&B
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...

US
Dance
US
A/C
UK
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

1973 "Check It Out" 35 5
1974 "That's the Sound That Lonely Makes" 70 10
"Too Late" 59 10
"She's Gone" 50 1
1975 "Remember What I Told You to Forget" (A-side) 25 4
"My Ship"(B-side)
"It Only Takes a Minute
It Only Takes a Minute
"It Only Takes a Minute" is a 1975 song by Tavares. It would become the group's only Top 10 pop hit in the United States, peaking at #10. It also became their second #1 song on the American soul charts....

"
10 1 3
"Free Ride" 52 8
1976 "The Love I Never Had" 11
"Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Part 1)
Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel
"Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" is a disco song written by Freddie Perren and Keni St. Lewis. It was recorded by the New England band Tavares in 1976. The song was released as a single from the album Sky High! and was split into two parts. The first part was 3 minutes and 28 seconds in length,...

"
15 3 1 18 4
"Don't Take Away the Music" 34 15 4
1977 "Mighty Power of Love" 25
"Whodunit
Whodunit (song)
"Whodunit", written by Keni St. Lewis and Freddie Perren, was a hit song for R&B/disco group Tavares in 1977. Released from their album, Love Storm it spent one week at number one on the R&B singles chart in May 1977, and peaked at number twenty-two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and in...

"
22 1 31 5
"One Step Away" 16
-----------------------
"Goodnight My Love" 14
"More Than a Woman
More Than a Woman (Bee Gees song)
"More Than a Woman" is a disco song written by the Bee Gees for the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever....

"
32 36 7
1978 "The Ghost of Love (Part 1)" 48 29
"Timber" 94
"Slow Train to Paradise" 62
"Never Had a Love Like This Before" 5
1979 "Straight from Your Heart" 77
"Bad Times" 47 10
1980 "I Can't Go on Living Without You" 42
"Love Uprising" 17
1981 "Loneliness" 64
"Turn Out the Nightlight" 45
"Loveline" 47
1982 "A Penny for Your Thoughts" 33 16 15
1983 "Got to Find My Way Back to You" 24
"Deeper in Love" 10 41
"Words and Music" 29
1986 "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" (Ben Liebrand
Ben Liebrand
Ben Liebrand is a dance music DJ. He has produced artists such as Forrest and MC Miker G & DJ Sven and remixed tracks by artists such as Salt N Pepa, Sting, TLC, Fun Fun, Tavares, Bill Withers, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Rick Astley, SWV and Phil Collins...

 Remix)
12
"It Only Takes a Minute" (Ben Liebrand Remix) 46
"—" denotes the single failed to chart

External links


See also

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