Life Lessons From Frankie Beverly

on the Frankie Beverly songs that will stay with me forever

My Maze featuring Frankie Beverly vinyls

Late Autumn 2017, I sat in the 5th-floor walk-up studio apartment on the Lower East Side, where my new boyfriend lived. For weeks, we lounged around his space filled with the kind of IKEA furniture characteristic of a 20-something still fresh into adulthood, smoking trees, conversing, and listening to music. On these nights, we listened to a playlist he curated, something he was excellent at, making him even more attractive to me, a woman who trusts virtually no one with the aux cord. There was one song on this playlist with an infectious groove that stood out during each listening session. It starts with the sound of electronic hand claps layered with a mambo-inspired drum pattern, followed by a subtly funky ten-note Rhodes piano bass line, a rhythm guitar riff, and layers of synthesizer strings and keys that fill out the melodic and harmonic foundation of the song. The groove plays for nearly two minutes before the distinctive sound of Frankie Beverly’s belting vocals transports us into the rest of the song. This infectious groove would always cause us to pause, look at each other, nod and sway to the beat, and smile. I told him that this was a song I grew up hearing a lot, but listening to it with him gave it an entirely new meaning and feeling. That song was “Joy & Pain” by Frankie Beverly and Maze, and nearly seven years later, I’m still happily in love with that man who lived in a tiny apartment in an old tenement building, and that song is still our song.

The instrumental groove hooked us and turned the song into one that would immediately remind us of one another, but the lyrics spoke to the broader themes of love and our relationship. During the winter that followed, we endured health issues that caused us to be apart from one another for months. I think most new couples might have called it quits at such an early stage, but there was a pull that kept us together, and we supported each other through a very physically painful time for both of us.

As the founder, producer, and lead singer of soul band Maze, Frankie Beverly wrote all of the lyrics for their songs, and we don’t talk about his pen enough. Frankie Beverly was a straightforward and reflective songwriter who often touched on themes that only someone who has been through some shit can truly resonate with. In “Joy & Pain”, Beverly talked about the duality of love and pain in romantic relationships:

Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain

Love can be bitter, love can be sweet
Sometimes devotion, and sometimes deceit
The ones that you care for give you so much pain
Oh, but it's alright, they're both one in the same

The obvious interpretation of this song is that there are moments where we hurt the people we love, and that we can only be hurt by someone because we love. But I think much of this also applies to the painful tribulations we endure in relationships that have nothing to do with how we treat each other. In the case of me and my partner, outside circumstances caused us pain, and we loved and sustained each other through that.

Over and over you can be sure
There will be sorrow but you will endure
Where there's a flower, there's the sun and the rain
Oh, but it's wonderful, they're both one in the same

This song reminds me that pain is temporary and love will always prevail. It speaks to what has sustained our relationship for nearly a decade: our willingness to weather storms together. Through his songwriting, Frankie Beverly contextualized this dichotomy in relationships without leaning into naivete or cynicism. One of the best examples is perhaps his most well-known song, “Before I Let Go,” a classic played at Black cookouts for more than four decades.

You made me happy
This you can bet
You stood right beside me
And I won't forget

And I really love you
You should know
I wanna make sure I'm right, girl
Before I let go

Sonically, this song is joyful and funky, which is why it causes Black Americans everywhere to break out into an electric slide when we hear the instrumental drop and Frankie’s signature introductory vocal riff in the first couple of bars, despite it being a breakup song. Frankie is not somber; he is grateful for his experience with this woman, even though it wasn’t meant for them to work out. He wants to end on good terms before he lets go and moves on:

You know I think the sun rises and shines on you
You know there's nothin', nothin', nothin' I would not do

Before I let you go
Oh...
I would never, never, never, never, never, never, never
Never let you go before I go

Though “Before I Let Go” is widely known for this Black electric slide phenomenon (re-popularized for younger generations by Beyoncés cover of the song for her HOMECOMING album), Black people will electric slide to any Maze and Frankie Beverly song with a funky bass line¹. Their music breeds togetherness. We dance in unison because we feel connected in our Blackness, humanness, and joy. After deep diving into the rest of Frankie Beverly and Maze’s discography, it’s clear that this has always been the intention.

As some of you may know, I am an avid record collector. On my birthday last year, I felt like a kid in a candy store when I found Maze Live, and We Are One on vinyl in excellent condition at a flea market in Lisbon. I’ve played the latter numerous times this year as I’ve been coping with how lacking in compassion people seem towards one another in this current hellscape we’re navigating. The title track, specifically, has spoken to me on a spiritual level:

Sometimes I feel
That we try and make each other sad
I don't know why
The things we do
How we make each other feel so bad
We've got so much
We could all be having so much fun

We are one
From the very start
We are one
Deep down in your heart
We are one
And that's the way it is
We are one

Similar to “Joy & Pain”, the interpretation of this song could speak to how people treat each other in relationships or to the broader themes of the human experience. It doesn’t contain the poetic expressiveness you may associate with a song written by some of his peers, like the Isley Brothers, for example. Though Frankie’s approach to writing was introspective and tender, he was a baritone with a full-bodied voice that added a depth of feeling to the words he crooned that could go over your head if he were a tenor or had a voice with a less prominent presence. His voice takes you beyond the words and conveys an emotional truth that can only be understood on a soul level — there is a reason why they call it soul music, after all.

In one of his last interviews on the Questlove Supreme podcast, his cousin Deborah Beverly-Pugh talked about her experience of watching Frankie’s journey as a musician:

“He loved to talk about love. Love is his go-to word…Back then, with the uprise [sic] of all types of things going with the world, he started to think about those things too, and he talked about how “this is horrible, I’m going to write about this… That’s how he came to “We Are One,” people coming together instead of being apart… We should be as one. We should be helping these other people… I saw him work hard, think about what other people were going through, and think about love. That’s who he is. A person of love.”

It’s worth noting that despite being one of the most prolific soul bands of all time, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, never received any Grammy’s or mainstream awards. Still, the impact they have left on Black music and in the hearts of fans around the world is unquantifiable. In an era riddled with egocentric navel-gazing that causes people to hyperfocus on followers, analytics, and things that speak to superficial influence instead of indelible impact, there is something we can all learn from Frankie Beverly. You cannot take anything that gives you external validation into the next realm. The only thing you will leave behind is how you made people feel. Frankie Beverly was a master of evoking happy feelings, and his empathy allowed him to feel what you’re feeling. At our core, I think this is what every artist aspires to do, and I’m grateful for the work he left behind, which I can revisit any time I need this reminder.

Thank you, Mr. Beverly, for creating the soundtrack to joyful core memories and for all of the lessons you imparted onto us with your gift. May we carry them with us as we honor your legacy and set out to leave behind our own.

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With love,

LaChelle

1. TBH, any classic soul/R&B record with a funky bass line because “Candy” by Cameo also gets this same reaction.