Anita Baker

With a sound like warm melted butter in songs that defined the "quiet storm" slow-jam genre, the voice of Anita Baker ruled the airwaves during the '80s and early '90s. From the moment the Detroit native released Rapture in 1986, Baker became a mainstay on R&B radio. Songs like "Caught...

By Patrice Elizabeth Grell Yursik

July 24, 2008

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With a sound like warm melted butter in songs that defined the "quiet storm" slow-jam genre, the voice of Anita Baker ruled the airwaves during the '80s and early '90s. From the moment the Detroit native released Rapture in 1986, Baker became a mainstay on R&B radio. Songs like "Caught Up in the Rapture," "No One in the World," and "Sweet Love" catapulted to the top of the adult contemporary charts, and her follow-up album, Giving You the Best That I Got, established her among the definitive soul singers of the decade. By the mid-'90s, the eight-time Grammy Award-winning, platinum-album selling artist walked away from it all. Baker took a ten-year hiatus to care for her dying parents. It was a trying time for the songstress — in 1996, her mother died in her arms. Her father passed away in 1998. It took Anita Baker time to heal from these grievous losses, but in 2004, she returned to the recording studio. Older and wiser, her voice still holds the warmth and resonance that it did 20 years ago.

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