When two of the greatest soul voices get together for a duet and received almost saturation airplay across Britain and America, how can it fail to be successful? Well it did, initially. Upon Yah Mo B There’s release in the States in December 1983, it stalled at number 19 and as for the UK when it was first issued in February 1984, it bowed out at number 44. One month later it popped back in the chart for three weeks but getting no higher than number 69. It was only when Jellybean Benitez re-mixed it with a not-too-different sound it was re-issued and eventually went to number 12 in the UK. Although an infectious dance track, maybe people didn’t understand what it was about. After all, it’s not obvious from the title, so, Karen Jones did indeed ask that question, so Karen let’s find out.
Michael McDonald, who was born in Missouri in 1952, was formally a member of Steely Dan’s touring band before becoming a main member for four years in the mid-70s. In 1975, he was recruited as the lead singer with the Doobie Brothers initially to temporarily replace Tom Johnston who had been taken ill during a tour. He proved to be a success and became a full-time member. In 1982, he launched a solo career which continues to this day with an occasional return to Steely Dan.
James Ingram who was born in Akron, Ohio four days after McDonald and started his solo career in 1973, initially played piano for Ray Charles. In the late 70s, he got a publishing deal with 20th Century Fox and recorded a demo of the song Just Once. The demo was so good it was decided that James should record the finished article and it appeared on Quincy Jones’ album The Dude. When it was released as a single it was credited to Quincy Jones featuring James Ingram whereas in the UK, it was just credited to Quincy Jones. One thing Quincy wasn’t, was a singer. He did just about everything else. When Steve Newton asked Ingram if Ray Charles was an inspiration to him, he replied, “No doubt about it. You can probably hear it in my voice. It’s hard to get away from him, he’s such a strong influence as a person and is a genius talent.” James Ingram, along with Patti Austin became Quincy’s go-to singers and appeared on numerous tracks involving Q. Bizarrely, both McDonald and Ingram had American number ones with a duet partner called Patti – McDonald with Patti Labelle with the song On My Own and Ingram with Patti Austin on Baby, Come To Me.
Yah Mo B There came about after Quincy Jones asked them to collaborate and come up with a song for Ingram’s album It’s Your Night that Quincy Jones was producing. They didn’t know each other at that point, but became firm friends after the session. Ingram explained to Steve Newton what happened when they got to the studio, “So we got together and started working on some things. Next thing I knew we were jamming for 45 minutes, we didn’t even know what we were doin’ or nothin’. We weren’t even looking at each other, we were just playing.” They wrote about half a dozen songs together and showcased them to Quincy who only really liked Yah Mo B There.
The title has confused people for years, Ingram’s explanation: “It’s like, “Are you coming to the party?” Yeah, Mo B there”. It’s a little slang for ‘I will’. But there’s some spiritual meanings in there too. McDonald’s explanation, “Yah Mo B There is based on the original Hebrew name for God (Yahweh), and was originally called Yahweh Be There. It was Ingram’s idea to change it, “We were talking about how to say ‘God will be there’ without scaring most of the audience away.” It was a possibility that non-religious people may have been put off after hearing the opening line, ‘Heavenly Father watchin’ us fall, We take from each other and give nothing at all’. Quincy brought in one of his go-to songwriters, Rod Temperton, who was the British-born member of Heatwave and who wrote many songs for Michael Jackson, Donna Summer and George Benson. Jones provides the African style sounds in the song and both he and Temperton get a writing credit.
Yah Mo B There won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. It was the second of two Grammys for Ingram, the other being One Hundred Ways.
Whilst McDonald continues to perform, sadly James Ingram died of brain cancer in 2019. His biggest UK hit was another duet, this time with Linda Ronstadt in 1987 on the song Somewhere Out There which was featured in the movie An American Tail. Seven years later he teamed up with Dolly Parton for the song The Day I Fall In Love which was used as the love theme for the 1993 film Beethoven’s 2nd.