Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

This week’s theme is  “Duets.”

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I’m in my third year of participating in Song Lyric Sunday and I cannot remember a more difficult theme than this week’s duets simply because there are SO MANY to choose from!

Whether it’s by generations/decades, genres or music eras, anyone can easily name a dozen.

As I narrowed my choices down, my love of duets from movie soundtracks became more than apparent. With a list of nine, I couldn’t say any one song was my favorite and choose just two–one for here and one for FeliciaDenise.com–so I went with which songs spoke to me the most.

That helped me choose All I Want is Forever sang by James “J.T.” Taylor and Regina Belle and written by the phenomenal Diane Warren. The song is the first single released from the soundtrack of the 1989 dance drama, Tap, starring Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr.

The movie centers around Hines as Max Washington. Just released from prison, he must decide which of his previous professions to return to: burglary or tap dancing… and the woman he’s never forgotten.

All I Want is Forever didn’t chart but it did receive an official video with
Taylor and Belle singing inter-spliced with scenes from the movie.

FUN FACTS

• While not big box office, Tap is notable for being the final film appearance of Sammy Davis, Jr, who died the following year, and for a dance challenge sequence by dance legends Arthur Duncan (known as a performer on the Lawrence Welk show from 1964 to 1982), Bunny Briggs, Howard Sims (Sandman Sims of the Apollo Theatre), Steve Condos, Harold Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers. He and older brother, Fayad are known as two of the world’s greatest dancers), and Jimmy Slyde.
• Tap also features a young Savion Glover as Davis’ grandson. He would go on to win Broadway’s 1996 Tony Award for Best Choreographer for the musical he starred in and co-created with George C. Wolfe called Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk; which also brought him a Best Actor (Musical) Tony nomination.
• Before his rise to fame, Taylor was a schoolteacher and amateur night club singer.
• He joined Kool & the Gang in 1978 and became the band’s lead singer in 1979.
• Regina has had notable success with soundtrack duets. The theme song Far Longer than Forever from the animated movie The Swan Princess, performed with Jeffrey Osborne, was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1995 for Best Original Song, and A Whole New World, the main theme of the Disney’s animated feature film Aladdin, recorded in 1992, which Belle and Peabo Bryson won the 1994 Grammy award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. A Whole New World also is the first and so far, only song from a Disney animated film to top the US Billboard Hot 100.
• Regina successfully battled a brain tumor in 2009. However, she is now deaf in her left ear.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for FeliciaDenise.com.

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.