Tavares - Madam Butterfly 1979

 Madam Butterfly is the seventh album by the American soul/R&B group Tavares, released in 1979 on Capitol Records.

 

By this stage in the group's career, they had become known as a disco act due to successful singles such as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel", "Whodunit" and "More Than a Woman." However, Madam Butterfly is noted for its lack of anything approaching disco material, and, as such, is considered to be more akin in style to the group's 1973-'75 albums than to their '76-'78 Freddie Perren-produced output.

"Never Had a Love Like This Before", one of several slow jams on the album, became a top 5 R&B hit and has subsequently become a quiet storm radio classic, while tracks such as "I'm Back for More" are more funk-based than listeners had come to expect from Tavares. The title track Madam Butterfly received considerable airplay on R&B radio stations, and became a hit, but was not released as a single by Capitol. The album performed respectably on the R&B chart, peaking at #13, but failed to achieve substantial sales in the crossover market. Its reputation has grown over the years and it is now considered among the group's best. 

 Pop fans who associate Tavares with "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" and the Bee Gees' "More Than a Woman" tend to think of it as a disco group. But Tavares' roots were Northern soul, and it was a classic Northern soul approach that first sent the Bostonians to the top of the R&B charts, not until Tavares' fourth album, Sky High!, did the quintet start to acquire a reputation as a disco act. With 1979's Madame Butterfly, Tavares seemed to be going out of its way to live down its disco reputation. The material is straight-up Northern soul, and nothing on this hell bent for R&B album is as disco-minded as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" or "More Than a Woman." If you notice that much of Madame Butterfly is very Philadelphia-sounding, it's no coincidence, this excellent LP was produced by Bobby Martin, a Philadelphian who was highly regarded in Philly soul circles. Anyone who has spent hours and hours listening to the O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, and the Intruders should have no problem getting into solid offerings like "My Love Calls," "Straight from the Heart," and the major hit "Never Had a Love Like This Before." If, in 1979, you were hoping to hear Tavares performing a lot of disco, you were bound to find Madame Butterfly disappointing. But those who wanted Tavares to stick to pure, unadulterated northern soul agreed that working with Martin was a very wise move.