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‘Ballads Last Forever’

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Brian McKnight is contemporary R&B;’s greatest practitioner of the bedroom ballad. A spiritual descendant of such soulful lover men as Teddy Pendergrass and Marvin Gaye, he has staked his career on mastering the slow-burn sensuality of a well-calibrated love song.

In McKnight’s hands, the most banal sentiment can be transformed into something alluringly transcendent. It was one such ballad--”Anytime,” the title song from his 2-million-selling 1998 album--that turned McKnight into a crossover star. His latest release, “Back at One,” has already outsold “Anytime” without straying too far from that album’s heavy emphasis on ballads.

“Ballads last forever,” says McKnight, who headlines a bill at the Universal Amphitheatre on Friday that features fellow soul heartthrob Eric Benet.

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“They have a timeless quality. Dance songs last for the summer, and that’s it. I consider myself to be a singer, and I can only sing what I like. The [Grammy] song of the year for the past 15 years has been a ballad.”

McKnight chafes at what he feels is record industry pressure to record hip-hop. “Back at One” makes only a gratuitous concession to the current zeitgeist with two jittery dance tracks produced by 24-year-old phenom Rodney Jerkins.

“[Hip-hop] is what’s now and happening,” says McKnight, 30, “but would I forsake what I do to be that? No. To do that, you have to personify it, and I have no idea what it’s all about. You’re not gonna see me bust into a rap on one of my albums.”

McKnight was reared in Buffalo, N.Y., in an aggressively normal household that valued family ties and a strong work ethic. His father, a rocket scientist, drove his two sons to accept nothing less than excellence from themselves. “He wanted us to try to be the best at whatever we did,” says McKnight, whose brother Claude is a member of the gospel-R&B; group Take 6. “My wife and I are having those battles now with our two kids.” (McKnight has two boys, ages 7 and 10.)

A pure product of suburbia, McKnight is an unabashed fan of white-bread, middle-of-the-road pop, finding in that often-criticized genre the same commitment to song craft and melody that he values in his own music.

He cites, with nary a trace of irony, such artists as Michael McDonald, Barry Manilow and Journey’s Steve Perry as influences.

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“I don’t care how cool you think you were in 1984,” says McKnight, “when Journey’s ‘Open Arms’ was the biggest song, you were singing along to it just like me.”

He also claims that “every melody you hear is based on a Barry Manilow melody. That’s just traditional, classic songwriting at its best.”

Even when he was a kid, McKnight knew that he was something special. By the time he graduated from high school, this musical prodigy had mastered nine instruments. While other kids were flipping skateboards and trading baseball cards, he was writing songs and working up intricate arrangements for them. He was also playing three sports.

Where did McKnight conjure up the will to become such a cross-disciplinary grandmaster?

“I was just a showoff,” says the R&B; star. “I just wanted to be able to say that I could do all these things. I’m what you might call a renaissance man.’

BE THERE

Brian McKnight, with Eric Benet, Friday at Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, 8:15 p.m. $21.50 to $45. (818) 622-4440.

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