Thirty years ago this week, R&B sensation Tony! Toni! Tone’! released their third studio album Sons of Soul.
The California based trio released this album on June 22nd, 1993, as a follow up to their platinum selling album The Revival (1990). Following the release of the latter, the trio was on the precipice of achieving mainstream success s the resurgence of R&B was beginning to take shape in the 1990’s following the success of other R&B acts such as Janet Jackson, Xscape, En Vogue, Jodeci, Mary J Blige, etc.
Writer Brandon Ousley, in his 2023 article for Albumism, “Tony! Toni! Toné!’s ‘Sons of Soul’ Turns 30 | Album Anniversary”, writes, “suddenly as the ‘90s dawned, the black music climate slowly fell out of favor with glossy new jack swing sensibilities and embraced the grittier modes of a new subgenre hybrid coined ‘hip-hop soul’… the Tonies opted to pivot from these shifts and dub themselves as a soul outfit, going so far as to denounce their association with contemporary clichés in R&B…the grueling, yet fruitful experimentation that spawned Sons of Soul marked an artistic reawakening for Tony! Toni! Toné!, as they eschewed their earlier experiments with new jack swing and rose as preeminent modern-day funk and soul bohemians. In crafting this kaleidoscopic masterpiece that paid respectful homage to several of their old and new influences, they constituted classic soul of the past with sultry currents of the present.”
The approximately 70 minute album consists of some of the band’s well known hits including “Anniversary”, “Slow Wine”, and the classic “Lay Your Head On My Pillow”. As with all of their discography, the group had a prominent hand on the production side, writing and/or co-writing and producing the album tracks. Much of the album’s sound was largely a homage to the artists that inspired the group. Member Dwayne Wiggins mentioned in a 1993 article for The New York Times, that, “we are paying homage to a lot of older artists who paved the way for us artists like the Temptations, Sly and the Family Stone, Earth, Wind, & Fire… we feel like we’re the sons of everything and all those people who came before us.”
Sons of Soul solidified Tony! Toni! Tone’! as one of the biggest selling R&B acts of the 1990’s. Following massive commercial success, including a stint as the opening act of Janet Jackson’s 1993 Janet. Tour, the group went on a brief hiatus where each member pursued individual projects in songwriting and production. The group would eventually reunite to record their follow up, 1995’s House of Music.
Today, Sons of Soul remains a seminal moment in the band’s discography and thirty years later, it has stood the test of time.
