Quiet storm is a radio format and a subgenre of contemporary R&B music that is characterized by understated, mellow dynamics, slow tempos, and relaxed rhythms. It was pioneered in the mid-1970s by Melvin Lindsey, while he was an intern at the radio station WHUR-FM in Washington, D.C.. This style of R&B music was named after Smokey Robinson's 1976 single "Quiet Storm".
Contents
Quiet storm later became a blanket term for mellow or soulful slow jams and smooth jazz of the sort played by radio programs influenced by Melvin Lindsey's format.
Characteristics
According to music journalist Jason King, quiet storm developed as a subgenre analogous to soft rock because it emphasized the more tender qualities of R&B:
Ben Fong-Torres of Rolling Stone called the genre a "blend of pop, jazz fusion, and R&B ballads--all elegant and easy-flowing, like a flute of Veuve Clicquot champagne".
Origins
Melvin Lindsey, a student at Howard University, with his classmate Jack Shuler, was first a disc jockey for WHUR in 1976 as stand-ins for an employee who failed to report for work. The response from listeners was positive, and Lindsey stayed on. Founder of Radio One Cathy Hughes, WHUR station manager, heard of the show's positive reception and responded by giving Lindsey and Shuler their own show.
After a time, the strains of "A Quiet Storm," Robinson's popular recording, became Lindsey's theme music and introduced his time slot every night thereafter. "The Quiet Storm" was four hours of melodically soulful music that provided an intimate, laid-back mood tailor-made for late-night listening, and that was the key to its tremendous appeal among adult audiences. The format was an immediate success, becoming so popular that within a few years, virtually every station in the U.S. with a core black, urban listener-ship adopted a similar format for its graveyard slot. In the New York tri-state late night market Vaughn Harper D.J'd the quiet storm graveyard program for WBLS-FM which he helmed for 35 years until being released from the station in 2008. Melvin Lindsey died of AIDS in 1992, but the "Quiet Storm" format he originated remains a staple in radio programming today, more than 40 years after its inception.
Influence
Quiet Storm programming is credited with launching the careers of Luther Vandross and Anita Baker, and with introducing Sade to U.S. audiences. Classic quiet storm recordings include Frankie Beverly and Maze's "Golden Time of Day," Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On", the orchestrations of Philadelphia soul, the recordings of Al Green, Gil Scott-Heron, Barry White, and Bill Withers, much of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery's work during his CTI (Creed Taylor, Incorporated) years, and the work of jazz-funk saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. In 1986, Peabo Bryson released an album entitled Quiet Storm. Quiet Storm was most popular as a programming niche with baby boomers from the mid-1970s to the early '90s. During this era, it promoted a noticeable shift in the sound of R&B of the time. People such as Al Green, Luther Vandross, and Minnie Riperton became the faces of R&B without the traditional "grit" and a shift in the focus to sexual activities. Some, such as Mark Anthony Neal, believe that this shift represents a cultural appropriation to make R&B more marketable to white audience. Others argue that it is simply representing a growing new class of black authenticity—affluent or middle-class African Americans who, while still black, are still represented by musical genres beyond gangsta rap or hip-hop. After this period much of mainstream R&B took on a harder, hip-hop influenced approach.
WHUR radio still has a "Quiet Storm" show (now under the title The Original Quiet Storm); and many urban, black radio stations still reserve their late-night programming slots for quiet storm music, as well. Now included in the genre is music with a hip-hop infusion, known as neo soul. Neo soul artists today include Raphael Saadiq, John Legend, Brian McKnight, Joe, Sade, Jaheim, D'Angelo, Maxwell, Raheem DeVaughn, Chrisette Michele, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, India.Arie, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and Alicia Keys. Quiet Storm music is also the more mellow, soulful side of smooth jazz.
At least two non-commercial FM stations, the community-based WGDR in Plainfield, Vermont, and its sister station, WGDH in Hardwick, Vermont (both owned by Goddard College), have been broadcasting a weekly, two-hour "Quiet Storm" program since 1998—a 50-50 mix of smooth jazz and soft R&B, presented in "Triple-A" (Album Adult Alternative) style, with a strong emphasis on "B" and "C" album tracks that most commercial stations often ignore. Hosted by Skeeter Sanders, WGDR's "Quiet Storm" is one of the station's most popular music programs, based on a 2010 listener survey. In September 2011, a syndicated version of Sanders' program began broadcasting on the Internet-only Fishbowl Radio Network and ran for three years, until November 2014. In January 2015, the program began streaming on the Minneapolis-based SsassyRadio.com and ran until January 2017. The syndicated version is now carried by Boston-based internet station WJMX SmoothJazzBoston.com and to terrestrial radio stations across the United States affiliated with the Pacifica Radio Network and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).
WHUR operator Howard University has registered "Quiet Storm" as a trademark for "entertainment services, namely, a continuing series of radio programs featuring music."
The sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati featured disc jockey Venus Flytrap, an evening Quiet Storm style host.
The mellow, laid-back nature of the format has been parodied, most notably by Tim Meadows on Saturday Night Live, in which he played a "Quiet Storm" DJ who would react to life-shattering news, such as being fired, having his wife confess to adultery, and even his own murder, with his soothing voice unaltered. Back in the 1990s, Canadian adult contemporary station CFQR-FM in Montreal aired a Quiet Storm program featuring new-age music. Most recently, in 2007, Premiere Radio Networks launched a nationally syndicated nightly radio program based upon the Quiet Storm format, known as The Keith Sweat Hotel. That program, in edited form, broadcasts under the Quiet Storm name (as The Quiet Storm with Keith Sweat) on WBLS in New York City.
Janet Jackson was a pioneer in quiet storm music with the song "Funny How Time Flies (When You're Having Fun)" (1986), which received heavy airplay on British and American urban radio stations. She has quiet storm in her songs "Come Back to Me" (1990), "Any Time, Any Place" (1994), "Got 'Til It's Gone" (1997) and "No Sleeep" (2015).