Kenny G - "Don't Make Me Wait For Love"

(Debuted August 29, 1987, Peaked #15, 19 Weeks on the Chart)

Fans will immediately know that Kenny G is the artist behind the saxophone, but "Don't Make Me Wait For Love" isn't an instrumental. As with many of his hits, there's a guest vocal, and this one is done -- very capably -- by former Tower of Power frontman Lenny Williams. Since I gave a little background info on Kenny G here when I featured another one of his songs last year, I won't rehash the history...but it's worth checking out Williams' biography if you're unfamiliar with him.

In 1987, I was nearing my 15th birthday and I was still woefully unprepared when it came to dealing with the opposite sex (though I had no idea about that and wasn't all that interested in being told). At the time, songs like this one -- with its smooth jazz leanings and the calm voice over the saxophone lines -- seemed to convey a certain sophistication to me. As a result, I saw this as a mature seduction and something that I could use to show I had a certain "je ne sais quois" about me.

What is funny about that is that I had no understanding of French. Actually, I still don't, but I know that the phrase "je ne sais quois" means "I don't know what" and that sums me up at that time perfectly. Within a year, I had dropped the pretentious bit and returned for the time being to the louder stuff I was really interested in and let the smooth jazz inflections of Kenny G recede into the background. Until "Silhouette" came out in 1989, that is. Older and seemingly wiser, I was ready to give it another try even though I was still untested when it came to the ladies. I must have really seemed comical then.

Kenny G - "Songbird"

(Debuted April 4, 1987, Peaked #4, 22 Weeks on the chart)

The instrumental was a dying format on the pop chart even in 1987. While dozens of hit songs were instrumentals during the 1950s and 60s, the form begin winding down in the 1970s and was nearly crushed by the death of Disco. By the 1980s, the few instrumentals that were hits were theme songs to movies or TV shows.

That didn't mean the format was dead, however. Jazz artists were still performing instrumentals and so were New Age artists, but they just weren't getting much attention with radio stations or music video channels. In fact, Kenny G (real last name Gorelick) had been playing professionally since he was still in high school, playing his saxophone for the Love Unlimited Orchestra, and continued as he worked his way through college. He signed his own record deal in 1982 but worked in collaboration with a number of artists as well.

In 1987, his Duotones LP let the rest of the world that wasn't focused on the jazz world know who Kenny G was. "Songbird" would become the first instrumental track to reach the pop Top 10 that wasn't a theme song in over a decade, and he soon became the biggest-selling instrumental artist in history.