Karyn White Is No Longer on the Run

You’ve probably heard it before--that old disclaimer about dance music delivered by a female dance-music artist--this time by Karyn White.

“People don’t think dance-music artists can sing,” White complained. “You hear the bass and drums but sometimes you can barely hear the vocals because their voices aren’t that strong.”

White rattled off names of some dance-music stars. “Pebbles, Jody Watley, Janet Jackson, Vanessa Williams--they’re doing fine in that style. I can do what they do, but I want more than that. I can do better than that.”

So why not avoid dance music?

“They say it’s best to start out with an uptempo song as your first single,” White pointed out. “Ballads don’t get played that easily--not ballads by new artists. But radio will play a dance tune. You have to start somewhere.”

White seems to have picked a good place to start. Her dance single, “The Way You Love Me,” tops the black chart and is rapidly climbing the pop chart. And though not an ordinary dance tune--White spices it with some jazz-style phrasing--it’s still a dance tune.

White, 23, looked like a tempestuous glamour girl during that late- afternoon lunch. Heads turned when she walked through the restaurant. She has the arrogance that often goes with that kind of sexy good looks. But she wasn’t as cocky about her appearance as she was about her singing.

“I’ve been singing since I was a kid,” she explained. “I’ve been serious about it ever since I was a teen-ager. I’ve worked hard and made myself better and better.”

Just how good is White?

Was she all talk--handing out that same old dance-artist line? After all, most of them are convinced dance music is just a vehicle to use to jump-start their careers. They’ll confide that they can really sing like Anita Baker--jazzy, dramatic, with lots of feeling. And just wait, they’ll assure you, until you hear them sing a ballad. But many can’t even carry a tune--let alone effectively deliver a ballad.

White, though, really has something to boast about. Her high voice, though not exceptionally powerful, has an appealing resonance and a warm texture. She can convincingly convey emotion. You believe her anguish on the dramatic “Superwoman,” another gem by the songwriting team of L.A. Reid and Babyface, who wrote and produced six of the songs on her debut Warner Bros. album, “Karyn White.” Her next single, “Superwoman,” is one of the best R&B; ballads of the year.

“I don’t have to sell this song,” she insisted with supreme confidence. “Listen to it--it sells itself.”

“The Way You Love Me” isn’t her first hit. Some people won’t recall her first one--the 1986 dance single “Facts of Love”--because it was done with keyboard player Jeff Lorber. For a while, when playing the single, deejays just mentioned Lorber and neglected to add that White was singing.

“I wanted people to know who I was,” she recalled. “I was trying to get a record deal. Warner Brothers said if the single did well enough, they would give me a record contract. ‘Facts of Love’ went to No. 27 on the pop chart. That was good enough.”

Like sax player Kenny G, White is an alumnus of Lorber’s band who’s made good. He signed her in 1986 to record three songs on his “Private Passion” album. One of them was “Facts of Love.”

Before that, she was just another struggling singer working for an accounting firm and scraping money together to make a demo tape. Prior to working with Lorber, she sang with a local group and toured as a backup singer for R&B; vocalist O’Bryan, who was a budding star five or six years ago.

What she recalls about the O’Bryan tour had nothing to do with music: “I was very naive. I must have looked like an easy mark. All these famous people were trying to hit on me. That surprised me--one man in particular really surprised me. They were trying to take advantage of me. Being naive, I made some mistakes.

“But I learned some things too. I learned that you can’t be too trusting of men in this business. I learned how to say no without offending people. And I learned that I don’t have to be liked by everybody. I used to want everybody to like me but I got over that real fast. It’s a dangerous way to approach life--especially in the record business.”

While White was growing up in Westchester, sprinting rather than singing was her primary focus. “I was always a fast runner,” she said. “I won some medals too, in the 100 and the 220 (yard dash). If I had stuck with it, it might have been another Flo (Florence Griffith-Joyner).

“But track was hard work. I worked hard and trained hard. But I eventually gave it up to concentrate on singing. I liked track. It was a thrilling feeling to run--run faster than everybody else. But it didn’t compare to singing.

“Another reason I preferred singing--you don’t have to sweat as much.”