Wayne Brady's "A Long Time Coming" shows promise

09/23/08 - Wayne Brady. You know him, you love him. He's been a staple of the wildly popular improvision show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" for years, always entertaining ABC Family's late night audience with his quick wit and improv skills. One could easily see, however, whenever the show went to a musical game (like the Irish drinking songs or the hoe-Down) that Brady wanted more than a comedy career.

Making various guest and soundtrack appearances over the last few years, and hosting several network musical game shows such as "Celebrity Duets" and "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" Brady seemed to be testing the waters for a singing career of his own.

Finally, on Sept 16, with little fanfare, his album A Long Time Coming, was released. The album is standard adult-contemporary R&B. Vocally, Brady sounds great. His voice is perfectly suited for this kind of music. He hits his notes cleanly, makes sparing and effective use of runs and sings with a pleasing tone.

Lyric-wise, it's clearly aimed at the "Whose Line" demographic. The raciest the lyrics get is on the track "F.W.B." (" or, Friends With Benefits") where he declares, "I got no strings to complicate things."

This is clearly not the work of the man who once appeared on "The Chappelle Show" to ask the eternal question, "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?"

That's not to say there isn't a decent amount of humor on the album's tracks.

On the 1980-nostalgic "Back in the Day" Brady croons, "I loved you since Thundercats, Thundercats, Thundercats, oh, back when MTV played music videos.", On the catchy "I Ain't Movin" he sings, "Call me love struck, sensitive, maybe I'm just plain whipped, but I believe in this here romance.

As could be expected, there are a sizeable number of cover tracks on the album; Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come," Stevie Wonder's "All I Do" and The Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love." The latter of the three is the only interesting one, adapting the poppy Lennon-McCartney classic into a slow, sexy, piano groove.

The majority of the album is pretty bland. However, "Sweetest Berry" is a syrupy, gag-inducing love ballad, and "All Naturally" is a lame Usher impersonation complete with spoken intro and electronic enhancements. And the single "Ordinary." Well, the title says it all.

What speaks best for a future career in music for Brady however, is that the four songs for which he is given co-writing credit are clearly the most interesting on the album. In addition to the aforementioned "F.W.B.", "I Ain't Movin'," and "Back in the Day," Brady wrote the lyrics for the album's closer, "You and Me."

Drawing from his recent divorce, he sings about his daughter, "She's got your eyes, that crooked smile of mine / So there'll always be you and I / And though things have changed, one thing remains the same, / We'll still be a family, even if there's no you and me." The song is legitimately touching, and gives hope that however poorly executed the majority of this album is, Wayne himself may actually have the chops necessary to have a legitimate musical career.

The eternal question as asked on "The Chapelle Show:" "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?