Thelma Houston - 1980s

1980s

Houston continued recording into the 1980s, beginning with the RCA release Breakwater Cat which reunited her with Jimmy Webb who'd produced her debut Sunshower and which like their earlier collaboration was a commercially overlooked critical success. In the 22 December 1984 Billboard magazine interview, Houston admitted to "'no real commercial success' since the single 'Don't Leave Me This Way' broke on the Pop charts in late 1976" indicating that the disco backlash had left her with "no real base of audience support" and that her current album Qualifying Heat, executive produced by Houston herself, was a concentrated initiative to restore her as a viable chart presence; the album featured three cuts from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis - including the single "You Used to Hold Me So Tight" - and production work from Glen Ballard, Dennis Lambert, Cliff Magness and - in his first known recording work - Lenny Kravitz (then billed as Romeo Blue), who each produced a cut apiece. "You Use to Hold Me So Tight" became Houston's most successful post-'70s' release with a #13 R&B peak, but its parent album was a comparative failure - charting #41 R&B - and Houston would not cut another album for six years.

The constant ranking of her '80s releases of the '80s as moderate or minor R&B hits led Houston to concentrate on alternate exposure: having appeared in the independent film The Seventh Dwarf in 1979, Houston made guest-starring appearances into the mid-1980s in several popular television programs including Cagney & Lacey, Simon & Simon - a January 1986 appearance that featured her performing "You Used to Hold Me So Tight" - and Faerie Tale Theatre. Houston also appeared in the 1987 CBS after school special Little Miss Perfect (1987) - as "Prison Singer" - in the 1988 film And God Created Woman.

On the 19 May 1985 NBC broadcast Motown Returns to the Apollo Houston performed "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" in the guise of Dinah Washington. Houston continued to contribute to movie soundtracks, recording "Keep It Light" for the 1985 film Into the Night and she remade Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" for the 1989 film entitled Lean on Me. Houston also co-wrote and sang back-up on the song "Be Yourself" for Patti LaBelle's 1989 album of the same title.