Despite the length of her career, I really only became aware of Stephanie Mills fairly recently, when she played Aunt Em in the live televised version of The Wiz.
At the time there were raves about her voice that caught my attention, though I was still thinking of her primarily in relation to Broadway. Having dug in a bit deeper, now I know that her career goes far beyond that. It includes a Grammy for a song that I did know, "Never Knew Love Like This Before".
It has been somewhat interesting to think about why so much was unfamiliar - the age at which you start paying attention to artists, the fact that most of our Broadway shows were on 8-tracks and did not last long, and (always) who got play on MTV. A more encouraging lesson is that music has great depths that you can explore in multiple directions over and over again.
For this period of listening, I believe my favorite album was 1989's Home. Not only does it feature the title track - Mills' signature song - but it also has "Love Hasn't Been Easy On Me". The latter does not seem to rank among her hits, but it struck a chord with me.
Because the other great thing about music is how it can touch you, and how that can be timeless.
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