On his recent hit single "Half Crazy," Gill's husky, powerful baritone would lead to you to think he'd been around the love wars long enough to do some postgraduate work.

But the cover photo for his "Chemistry" album and the "Half Crazy" video show a slightly built kid with a soft, innocent stare, looking like he just got out of high school.

Which he has...For his new album he was teamed with veteran producer and songwriter Linda Creed, who had worked with Thom Bell on the Delfonics', Stylistics' and Spinners' recordings but dropped out of the business for five years to raise her family...That new combination, he feels, is going to put him that much closer to his dream: 'to sell 40 million copies like Michael and then get into the movies.'

--Excerpted from "The Ballads of Johnny Gill," Washington Post, June 22, 1985 Peter Judge wrote, "This is one of those albums that should have been bigger.

Gill's rich tenor makes a song like "Half Crazy" a real gem.