Peabo: At a Peak, but Plenty Peeved : Success Notwithstanding, Bryson Has Much to Say About Perceived Industry Injustices, Racism and Rap

Singer Peabo Bryson is frustrated.

Even as the veteran soul balladeer’s career seems to be at a peak, Bryson chafes at many aspects of the same music industry that’s brought him fame and fortune. To him, the business is racist, age-discriminatory and generally lacking in morals and ethics.

An artist carping about the biz certainly is nothing new. What is unusual is to hear a man who has enjoyed Bryson’s level of success speaking as pointedly about perceived injustice as he eagerly does.

During a recent phone interview, Bryson, who performs with Sheena Easton, Roberta Flack and James Ingram in the sold-out “Colors of Christmas” program at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts tonight through Friday, seemed more passionate about decrying industry pet peeves than discussing his own list of achievements--a list that any artist would envy.

Bryson has been a fixture on the R & B scene for almost three decades now, scoring with such hits as “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” and “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again.”

More recently, he’s expanded his fan base into new arenas. In 1992 alone, Bryson was featured on recordings that topped four separate charts: “A Whole New World,” a duet with Regina Belle from the Disney animated movie “Aladdin,” topped the Pop and Adult Contemporary charts; “The King and I” album, featuring Bryson, was No. 1 on the Classical Crossover charts, and Kenny G’s “Breathless” album, featuring Bryson on “By the Time the Night Is Over,” topped the Contemporary Jazz charts.

“I don’t think there’s anything I can’t do,” Bryson said. “I see myself as a true Renaissance man. I don’t like one-dimensional concepts of myself.”

Therein lies the rub. For all his success, Bryson, 43, feels stymied by a culture that worships youth, glorifies rage and violence in its music and refuses to grant acceptance to those who don’t play the game the way the industry has outlined it.

Bryson is best known for singing old-fashioned, romantic soul ballads in a lush, subtle baritone in an age when rap and grunge have captured the media’s attention almost to the exclusion of other musical genres. He has a large and loyal audience, yet Bryson feels blacklisted by contemporary pop culture, unable to get his music across to an even wider audience.

“How shall I put this?” he said. “I’m a great artist. Roberta Flack is a great artist. James Ingram is a great artist. Sheena Easton is a great artist. We are people who came up through the ranks and paid our dues and managed to survive.

“But we don’t get played on MTV, and I think there’s something wrong about that. MTV has become so negative. I think it’s fine to say you don’t like something, but I think when you promote anger and disgust until it becomes the most popular, most-watched format, then it becomes detrimental rather than helpful.

“When did the criteria stop being talent? And what are the demographics here--how many people who watch MTV actually have jobs? The thing that really gets to me is that adults who have jobs are footing the bill for this indulgence,” i.e., by purchasing the products advertised on the channel.

Bryson takes particular umbrage at rap.

Rap “especially angers me as an African American,” he said. “It’s another avenue for genocide. Young African Americans have no idea of their history, the history of R & B. (Rap) is the most highly touted, publicized (musical) form of our culture at this time, and I don’t want it to be the sole representation of African Americans in this country.

“Nothing positive comes out of it. I don’t like the degrading way women are portrayed; that really upsets me. (Rappers) don’t seem to care whether they hurt anybody or anything. Luther Campbell, by his own admission, wouldn’t want his own kids listening to his music, so why would he want to impose it on mine? It’s gotten to the point where it’s way too narcissistic and greedy out there.”

Bryson also was eager to vent his spleen over a televised tribute to the Apollo Theatre that was broadcast earlier this year. The concert featured a salute to Marvin Gaye performed by British pop group Simply Red, which also sang alongside Sam Moore of Sam & Dave and a very unhappy-looking Bryson later in the show.

Bryson says Simply Red should not have been chosen to perform in a salute to Gaye.

“I was very disturbed by that,” he said. “I don’t appreciate Simply Red singing those songs like ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Ain’t That Peculiar,’ and I don’t understand what the purpose of it was.

“I mean, if you’re going to have a tribute, I would think you would use those of us who grew up with that music, internalized it and still use it as a part of what we are now. I asked specifically about doing those songs, and I don’t understand the reasoning behind having him do them instead. And what were the rappers doing there, while many (veterans of the Apollo) were conspicuous by their omission? Solomon Burke is still around, Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett. Why weren’t they included instead?”

While Bryson feels he has much to bemoan, he never comes across as unhappy or defeatist. He raises his arguments in an even, rational tone of voice and is quick to pepper his conversation about even the most frustrating topics with side jokes and laughter.

Friendly and intelligent, Bryson has a strong sense of who he is and where he wants to go, even if his ambitions can’t keep pace in a musical world that revolves around the trends of the day. But if he fails to meet every goal in his agenda, it won’t be for lack of fighting spirit.

“I guess I (tick) people off because I don’t go away,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m like a tenacious forest fire--you snuff me out over here, and I’m still burning down the back 40 just when you think it’s over. I have a great faith in God, and because of my great faith in God, I have faith in the self.”

* “The Colors of Christmas,” featuring Peabo Bryson, Sheena Easton, Roberta Flack and James Ingram, takes place today through Friday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. SOLD OUT. (310) 916-8500.