"
I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby"
The song is written, produced and recorded by
Barry White. Considering how successful it would end up being, it would probably come as a surprise that, for many years, White had little to no interest in a recording career.
[1] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he built up a good resume as an arranger/producer and songwriter for singers
Felice Taylor and
Viola Wills and in 1972, White found great commercial success on the
U.S. Pop and
R&B charts with "Walkin' in the Rain (With the One I Love)", a song he wrote, arranged and made a brief, non-singing cameo on that was recorded by the female vocal trio
Love Unlimited and released by the
MCA-owned label,
Uni Records.
White's relationship with Uni would soon sour due to the departure of label-head
Russ Regan. With Love Unlimited still contract-bound to Uni, White decided to work with another artist, specifically a male one. He recorded three song demos of himself singing and playing the piano. White had a feeling that one of the songs, "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby", would be a good song to record himself. Initially hesitant to tell his business partner,
Larry Nunes, about the song, White eventually changed his mind and told Nunes about "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby", as well as the other two songs. Nunes was greatly impressed and urged White to re-record and release them as a recording artist. It would take two months but eventually Nunes convinced White to do it and White secured a recording deal with
20th Century Records through Russ Regan. White was still hesitating up to the time the label copy was made and even considered releasing the record under the name "White Heat", but he was talked out of that, as well. Appearing with White on the recording session for the song were guitarists
Ray Parker Jr.,
Wah Wah Watson,
Dean Parks, and
David T. Walker; drummer Ed Greene; bassists
Wilton Felder of
the Crusaders and
Nathan East; and vibes player Gary Coleman.
[2] Released in the spring of 1973 as the first
single from his 1973 debut
album I've Got So Much to Give, the song was a #1 hit on the
U.S. R&B chart for two weeks, peaked at number three on the
Billboard Pop Singles chart
[3] and reached #23 on the
UK singles chart. The single was also certified gold by the
RIAA for sales of one million copies.
Samples of the song have been used in numerous
hip hop recordings over the years by artists such as
Big Daddy Kane,
De La Soul,
Eric B & Rakim,
Ghostface Killah,
L.L. Cool J,
N.W.A.,
Nas,
Mos Def, and
Too Short.
[4] The track is featured in
Liam Howlett's
Dirtchamber Sessions Volume 1 DJ-mix album. It has appeared in the films, "
Love Serenade", "
High Fidelity", "
Kissing Jessica Stein" and "
Bringing Down the House". It was used in the season seven "
Friends" episode, "
The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin" and in the season one "
Cold Case" episode, "The Runner". It was spoofed by
Sesame Street in a musical skit with Cookie Monster (backed up by the Crumbs Unlimited Orchestra) as "Me going to Munch You Munch You Munch You".
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
