Flaming Starr (Expanded Edition)

As a producer, Larry Johnson, aka Maurice Starr, enjoyed great commercial success working with New Edition and New Kids on the Block; the Florida native/Boston resident also fared well as part of the Jonzun Crew. But Starr's solo output didn't get very far commercially. Originally released by RCA in 1980, Starr's first solo album, Flaming Starr, was a commercial disappointment but a creative success. And in spots, Flaming Starr is a bit ahead of its time; parts of the album emphasize synthesizers in a way that is more characteristic of the funk of 1983 and 1984 than the funk of 1980. Granted, much of Flaming Starr is very '70s-sounding, including the soul ballads "In My Life" and "Come See Me Sometime," the Isley Brothers-minded "When I Say I Love You," and the perky, somewhat Earth, Wind & Fire-ish "Start All Over." But when Starr really turns up the funk and emphasizes keyboards and synthesizers, Flaming Starr predicts the synth-funk/electro-hop era; that is especially true on "Moving on Up" and the infectious "Dance to the Funky Groove." For many years, Flaming Starr was out of print. But it returned to print in 2011, when Funky Town Grooves (a Brooklyn-based label specializing in reissues of R&B albums of the late '70s and '80s) reissued Flaming Starr as a 67-minute CD and added four bonus tracks: the single versions of "When I Say I Love You" and "Dance to the Funky Groove" and the 1979 singles "Bout Time I Funk U" and "Baby Come On," both of which have a strong P-Funk/George Clinton influence. Unfortunately, many of the people who know Starr for his work with New Edition and New Kids on the Block have never heard any of his solo efforts. But that doesn't make Flaming Starr any less rewarding, and it is nice to see the album reissued after all these years.