NEW YORK (Motown/ Universal Records) - Michael McDonald's new CD MOTOWN TWO (Motown/Universal) leaped onto the Billboard Charts today in the Top Ten. Released last week (10/26/04), MOTOWN TWO debuts at No 9 on The Billboard Top 200 Pop Chart and No 8 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Chart.
Motown Two came in just under Genius Loves Company -the
Ray Charles album that features the McDonald/Charles duet "Hey Girl." MOTOWN TWO is the follow-up to McDonald's two time Grammy nominated, platinum selling album MOTOWN, which has been in the Billboard Top 200 since its release in June 2003.
McDonald, who performed during halftime last week on ABC's Monday Night Football and then again on NBC's Regis & Kelly will be appearing November 14th on the American Music Awards where he is nominated for Best Pop Male Vocal of the Year, as well as Tony Danza Show (Nov. 11) and Jimmy Kimmel Live (Nov. 17). He will continue touring through December with appearances next week at the Beacon Theatre in New York City (Nov 11) and The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (Nov 12).
Like MOTOWN, MOTOWN TWO was produced by Simon Climie and features some of the label's signature hits by one of the world's legendary artists. This elegant second collection of Motown interpretations include "Reach Out I'll Be There," "What's Going On," "No Where To Run," "Tracks of My Tears," "Mercy, Mercy Me," "You're All I Need," "I Was Made To Love Her" with Stevie Wonder on harmonica, and "Stop, Look & Listen" with Toni Braxton on vocals. Various cuts on the album also feature Billy Preston on keyboard.
MOTOWN TWO is nothing less than McDonald's passionate, emotional nod towards the composers, artists and record collection that started him down the road to his five-time Grammy winning stellar career.
"For me the first album was a success when Simon signed on," says McDonald, "and I could see pretty clearly we were going to do the kind of record I hoped - very respectful and possibly even bringing something to these copyrights that I love so much. We wanted to show our respect to the original performers and their original performances, but also to real qualities of the songs themselves. We all left the first record going gosh, some day we'll do a Motown Two, whether it's right now or not," McDonald remembers.
"Then the success of Motown made it all the more possible for us to actually do that. We didn't blink because we already knew we could probably do five Motown records and never exhaust the catalog of great songs. At some point in the future there might be a Motown Three, for all I know. It's just such a rich and resourceful wellspring of wonderful copyrights and wonderful songs and incredible performances to go to school on."
