![]() ![]() By that point, Riley had already made hits with people like Bobby Brown, Al B. The group made a few tracks with Teddy Riley, the young producer who’d revolutionized R&B by injecting it with a clattering physicality, imported from rap and dance music. (At first, Hi-Five’s logo was styled as “Hi-V,” until someone pointed out that it looked too much like “HIV.”)īell brought Hi-Five to New York, where they recorded their self-titled debut album. Initially, the group called themselves the Playmates, but Hugh Hefner’s people threatened legal action, so they became Hi-Five instead. Three other young singers from Waco joined up, and the new group signed with Jive. Thompson recruited Toriano Easley, a friend from Oklahoma City. When Thompson was 12, Ador’s manager Vinnie Bell signed Thompson to a production deal and built a group around him. Thompson’s cousin was a singer in Ador, an R&B group signed to Jive Records. (When Thompson was born, the #1 single in America was KC & The Sunshine Band’s “ Get Down Tonight.”) When he was as young as eight, Thompson was singing in churches and local talent shows, building a rep for himself. Hi-Five lead singer Tony Thompson, who grew up between Waco and Oklahoma City, was a gospel prodigy. When they found their way to the top of the Hot 100, the members of Hi-Five were young. Hi-Five’s #1 hit might’ve been light, but this story gets heavy. There have been a lot of sad stories in this column, but the Hi-Five saga is among the most dark and fucked of any of them. That tender sweetness runs in direct opposition to the actual story of Hi-Five, whose entire run was an endless succession of calamities and tragedies. “I Like The Way” is an ode to young love, and its tender sweetness sets it apart. Instead, it harkened back to the shimmery innocence of the music that Brown first made with New Edition. “I Like The Way” wasn’t as hard and confident as the music that Riley made with someone like past Number Ones artist Bobby Brown. In 1991, when the new jack swing era was still near its peak, Hi-Five worked with genre architect Teddy Riley, and they built on the sound of the moment by taking it back to an earlier time. “I Like The Way (The Kissing Game),” the only #1 hit from the teenage Texan R&B group Hi-Five, is a remarkably soft, gentle song. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. ![]()
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