Rose Royce

Rose Royce are a funky and talented R&B soul music group from Los Angeles, California. The band first formed under the name Total Concept Unlimited in the early 70s. The original members were: Kenny Copeland (lead vocals/trumpet), Lequient "Duke" Jobe (basss/vocals), Michael Moore (saxophone), Freddie Dunn (trumpet), Walter McKinney (guitar), Michael Nash (keyboards), Henry Garner (drums/vocals), Kenji Brown (guitar/lead vocals), and Terral "Terry" Santiel (congas). Total Concept Unlimited toured in Japan with Edwin Starr in 1973. Starr introduced the group to legendary Motown music producer and songwriter Norman Whitfield. Whitfield renamed the band Rose Royce and added beautiful and charismatic female singer Gwen Dickey to the line-up (Dickey was discovered by Whitfield's band Undisputed Truth singing in a Miami, Florida group called the Jewels). The group hit pay dirt when they got the plumb opportunity to provide several songs for the comedy film "Car Wash." The supremely rousing and syncopated titular tune became a massive #1 hit on both the R&B and Billboard Top 10 pop charts. The songs "I Wanna Get Next to You" and "I'm Going Down" likewise did well on the R&B radio charts while the soundtrack album sold over a million copies. Rose Royce had further follow-up R&B chart hits with the songs "Do Your Dance," "Ooh Boy," the extremely lovely and poignant ballad "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," and "I'm in Love (And I Love the Feeling)." Dickey left the group in the early 80s and was replaced by singer Ricci Benson. The band continued to record albums and singles throughout the 80s and beyond, but alas have never managed to recapture the meteoric success of their 70s peak years. However, Rose Royce's songs have been covered by such notable music artists as Madonna, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Randy Crawford, Christina Aguilera, Teena Marie, Patti LaBelle, and En Vogue. Moreover, the group are still together with a mostly different line-up and continue to perform on stage on a regular basis.