Anita Baker | Been So Long (Change Request ReVision)

For this ReVision, I recreated one my mother’s all time favorite artists. She used to have this album on repeat when I was a child and it always stuck with me as the one song on that LP that I would always go back to. 

Rapture, Anita Baker’s second studio album, released in 1986, this album won her two Grammy Awards, with timeless tunes such as "Sweet Love”, "Same Ole Love”, and this track "Been So Long”. 

Written by Baker, this is one of two songs on the album that features her alone as the sole writer, the other being "Watch Your Step”.

Produced by Grammy Award winner Marti Sharron, this track features standard R&B arrangements of the 80s with her decidedly “Quiet Storm” approach to sound design. 

Featuring live drums, live bass, Yamaha DX7 Electric Piano, Fender Rhodes, Polymoog leads, Oberheim OB-X and Prophet 5 brass, I recreated this song with a modern touch on vintage synths. 

Enjoy! 

- Andrew Emil | Change Request

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Anita Baker | Been So Long (Change Request ReVision)

Andrew Emil // Change Request 

A preeminent artist of Chicago's 3rd wave, Andrew Emil is one of house music’s most staunch stalwarts. A concert-trained percussionist since age 11, he earned a chair in his native Kansas City Symphony before eventually moving to Chicago. 

As a traditional musician, Andrew Emil has worked as a keyboardist, arranger, and an orchestrator on recording sessions and productions, cutting his teeth at the former Chicago Trax Recording Studios. 

Credited on over 200+ recordings, his composition and studio productions have ranged from concert works and sound design to film scoring stages and hundreds of releases of electronic music productions. 

After a life in live music performance, from orchestra percussion sections to punk rock ensembles, he crafted a reputation for House Music productions in Chicago under his own name, as well as Broadway & Wilson, and Uptown Tones. 

One of the earlier innovators of the “Jackin House” genre under the Broadway & Wilson moniker with Jeff Bloom, Andrew is never content to stay in one place or style of musical thought for very long. 

He is the only recording artist to do production work simultaneously for Derrick Carter’s Classic Music Company, Mark Farina’s Great Lakes Audio, Gene Farris’ Farris Wheel Recordings, and four-time GRAMMY nominee Steve “Silk” Hurley’s S&S Records.

A string of double-digit singles for prominent labels, including remixes for artists such as Common, Kanye West, Little Louie Vega, Jamie Principle, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Iz & Diz, Fast Eddie, Shalamar, Roland Clark, David Morales, Colette, Amp Fiddler, JT Donaldson, and Gene Farris, to name a few. 

2012 saw the emergence of his epithet, Change Request, with the Change Theory EP on four play music. This new persona allowed the freedom to explore hybrids of mid-tempo live instrument focused jazz-dance-fusion. 

Following this release was “After All” on Seasons Recordings, with another single thereafter featuring house music icon, Chez Damier, “I Wanna Go Back”, including a remarkable rework from Glenn Underground, on Glenview Records. 

The ever-growing collection of songs and musical dialogue eventually led to the conceptual album series from Change Request. Each full-length effort containing a completely separate story and scored via its own unique incidental subtext. 

Emil created AstraVox Music with the award-winning Los Angeles-based composer, Mr. Nathaniel, as a home for his increasing catalog of incidental dramatic musical compositions. 

www.andrewemil.com