Background and Recording
Carey and her husband, Tommy Mottola, who was a Sony CEO. separated in 1997. This resulted in a strained relationship with Sony. By the spring of 1999, Carey had begun work on her last album of her contract with Columbia Records, titled Rainbow. Her relationship with Sony had affected her collaboration with writing partner Walter Afanasieff, who had worked with her throughout the first half of her career. As a result, she worked extensively with many other songwriters and producers for the album, including the duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, known for their work with Janet Jackson. "Thank God I Found You" was written by Jam and Lewis and co-written by Carey. When Jam and Lewis first started working with Carey, they did not have a definite idea of what Carey expected from them. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Jam and Lewis explained:
It wasn't like Janet, where we all grew up together. Mariah had done her own thing and had been very involved with the arranging and production of her records, so we respected that and said, 'What can we do for you?' She would fly into town for five or six hours. She'd get on a plane and fly to whatever was the next thing she was doing.
One night, Jam and Lewis received a call from Carey's assistant telling them that Carey had an idea for a song. She asked them to meet her at the studio later that night, and when they arrived, Carey sang the song's melody for them. Normally when Carey was composing songs, James "Big Jim" Wright would play the chords. He was not present at the studio that night, so Lewis played the chords for Carey. After composing the melody, Carey recorded her vocals. When Carey requested male singers to sing along with her on the track, Jam and Lewis recruited R&B singer Joe. Although Jam and Lewis wanted to feature K-Ci & JoJo on the song, they dropped the idea because they are signed to a different record label. About the recording, Joe said:
She gave me a call, and she was like, "I would love to do a duet with you. Come by the studio." When I got there, she played the song for me. I didn't expect to record the song, but when I heard it, I said, "Man, there's no way I'm going to leave this studio without my voice being on that record." Everything just happened so fast. I didn't expect for it to be a single or a video. Everything was just great.
Jam and Lewis also asked the boy band 98 Degrees to join Carey and Joe on the track, as they wanted male harmonies. Carey talked about the collaboration in an interview with MTV. "It's like when I was writing 'One Sweet Day'. It really cried out for a group to be singing with me and for a strong male-female thing in terms of going back and forth, vocally. So you know, we just naturally came together." The vocals were recorded at Capri Digital Studios, Capri, Italy and Avatar Studios, New York City. The track was mixed by Supa Engineer Duo at Right Track Recording and mastered by Herb Powers.
Read more about this topic: Thank God I Found You
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