Black History Throwback: Barry White’s ‘I’ve Got So Much To Give’ Is One Of One, Here’s Why!

One of the most poised and often overlooked figures in the history of music, Barry White, blessed fans of great soul singers for decades with a bevy of groundbreaking hits. The Galveston, Texas native is two-time GRAMMY winner known for his deep bass voice and romantic image, his greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer and with The Love Unlimited Orchestra, procuring many disco, funk, soul, and R&B tracks.

As a grown man Barry White influenced a bevy of our favorite musical acts of the past two decades and was considered a role model for his fellow industry colleagues on what a man should be. However life wasn’t always smooth for the iconic crooner. Barry as a youth was jailed for four month for theft of Cadillac tires at the age of 16 and that’s only a few occurrences of a troubled youth. However, White had a change of mindset early in life and in a moment of inspiration on his 18th birthday, which was his graduating year of high school.

Barry skipped class to walk to Capitol Records headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, and stood across the street from the office staring for hours. Seeing the liveliness of the area it inspired him to work in Hollywood and the entertainment industry after, despite not knowing how to read or write music. After his release from jail, White left gang life and began a musical career at the beginning of the 1960s in singing groups.

From The Upfronts to The Atlantics and The Magestics, Barry found moderate success into his career so far. However his big break was yet to come. In 1969, White was signed by Forward Records of Los Angeles, a division of Transcontinental Entertainment Corporation, as a producer. This pivoted him to his bigger breaks overall in music. In 1972, White got his big break producing a girl group he had discovered called Love Unlimited. Formed in style of The Supremes, the group members had gradually honed their talents with White for two years previously until they signed contracts with Uni Records. After that he produced a few notable hits but we are going to focus on his solo artist breakout.

He was going to use the name “White Heat,” but decided on using his given name instead. White was still hesitating up to the time the label copy was made. It eventually became White’s first solo album, ‘I’ve Got Much To Give, It includes the title track and his first solo chart hit, “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby.”  It rose to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts and No. 3 on the Billboard Pop charts in 1973, which then proceed in the top 40 for many week.

After that the “Walrus Of Love” graced fans of music worldwide with decades of hits before his unfortunate death in the year of 2003. Stream below to check out why Barry White is considered a pioneer of music.