In March of 1985, my wife and I had an opportunity to see Eddie Murphy in concert at the Orpheum Theater in Memphis. Most of the material he was performing at this show would end up in the concert film Raw. One difference in the material that I noticed had to do with discussion of marriage. At the concert, he talked about the fact that he was about to get married. In the film, he talked about all of the reasons he didn’t get married. Other than that, the shows were about the same. One of the more memorable moments from the show happened before Eddie Murphy made it to the stage. That moment happened during the opening act.
Lillo Thomas is and R&B singer that I had never heard of before. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I knew his name until I started doing research for this story. He opened the show with songs I’d never heard, and I don’t know that any ever became hits. The highlight of the performance was a duet that he sang with a female singer in the band. I’ve found out this song is called All Of You. This was the title song of an album that he released in 1984. The female vocalist on the album is singer/actress Melba Moore who is more known for being in the original Broadway cast of Hair than releasing any hit songs. But Melba was not on tour with Lillo and it didn’t matter to me because I have never heard the song. It was a nice performance until the very end of the song.
I have provided a link to a YouTube video featuring the song below to help you understand what should have happened at the end of the song. As the song moves to its ending, the singers repeat the phrase “All of You” in harmony over and over. Before they sing that line again, they trade other lines like these:
Lillo: ‘Cause you are my love
Melba: I want your love
Then they would sing the line “All of you” together again. Here are the final lines of the song:
Lillo: If you ever wanna try my love for sure?
Melba: I’ll Try you baby
Lillo: Girl All of you
(The drums take a brief break here)
Together: Can’t Take Half
All of you
For the live performance, the drum break mentioned above was more important than in the recording. All of the music would stop, Lillo and the singer were supposed to sing the last lines, then the music would come back in. For this performance, when Lillo sang his line “Girl, All of you” the drummer hit two of the cymbals like he was supposed to and it sounded great but after he hit them, he continued to raise his arms in the air away from the drum set above his head. He moved them so high that he lost his balance and he fell of the stand for the drum set. Lillo looked back and him, then looked down and shook his head as the drummer began climbing back into position. When he was back in place, he and the female singer sang the last line and the band came back in on cue. I can only imagine what it was like back stage after this show.