Search - Rick James :: Fire It Up (Reis)

Finally. Fire It Up, Rick James' third album for Motown, is available on a U.S. CD for the first time. Featuring the singles "Love Gun" and "Come Into My Life," Fire It Up is an underrated classic - Garden Of Love, also available on CD for the first time, is another; both were begging for the Motown/Hip-oSelect.com treatment. Digitally mastered for the first time, this reissue also includes for the first time the bonus 10-minute version of "Love Gun," a promotional-only 12-inch mix. Featured in the unique, foldout booklet is the full lyric reprint as seen in the original LP inner sleeve. Fire It Up followed the smash hit albums Come Get It and Bustin' Out in October 1979, as Rick was honing on the disco punk-funk sound that would ultimately prove enormously popular. It was defined, as Michael Veal writes in the reissue's liner notes, "by the funk-icon cover shot and the rowdy chants on the first two tracks, which James used to get the crowds worked up in concert. But as a whole, it was a more diverse affair... showing off James's superb ballad singing skills." Fire It Up, a Top 5 R&B/Soul and a Top 40 Pop album, was Rick's first that he produced his own - the template for his worldwide breakthrough to come, one of the "missing" RJ CDs that's finally getting its due.