Stacy Lattisaw — “Miracles”

Entered Top 40:  October 22, 1983
1  week  
Peaked at: 40

It isn’t quite “Beverly Hills Cop was at one time a Sly Stallone project,” but an interesting what-if about Stacy Lattisaw is that “Ring My Bell,” the 1979 Anita Ward disco classic, was originally written for her. Lattisaw was an 11-year-old singer being courted by a couple of labels, and the original song was about teens chatting on the phone. She signed with a different label, and “Ring My Bell” got sexed up a bit and given to Ward.

Lattisaw’s career started taking off working with producer Narada Michael Walden; they’d do five straight albums together. She had a #1 disco hit with “Dynamite!/Jump to the Beat” in 1980, and crossed over into the Top 40 later that year with “Let Me Be Your Angel” (#21, #8 R&B). Walden would eventually produce Whitney Houston, and “Miracles” is the sort of song Houston would eventually get: lots of key changes and flourishes. I don’t know that it entirely works (Lattisaw hits some good high notes, but her lower register is occasionally cringey), but it must be something to be high-school-dance age and have a hit single you might hear at your own dance.

Stacy Lattisaw wouldn’t hit the Top 40 again, but she’d have a few more R&B hits, especially duetting with childhood pal Johnny Gill before he joined New Edition in 1987. Gill would contribute vocals to Lattisaw’s only #1 R&B hit, 1989’s “Where Do We Go From Here.” Lattisaw retired from pop music in 1990, but has shown up on some gospel recordings.

*******

You know how goslings are all cute and fuzzy but then they grow into asshole geese? Well in the ’80s-’90s, there was this TV show Kids Incorporated that had Stacy Ferguson, who then grew up to be Fergie in Black Eyed Peas. So here’s Stacy in 1986 on an episode of Kids Incorporated singing “Miracles” to…a downtrodden Ruth Buzzi, I guess? What in the hell?