Moore's fourth album for Buddah, the 1977 release A Portrait of Melba, helmed by the virtuoso Philly soul production/songwriting team of McFadden & Whitehead - i.e. Gene McFadden and John Whitehead - had been a commercial failure which ended Moore's tenure with Buddah.

The album's lead single: "You Stepped Into My Life", ranked as high as #5 on the Billboard ranking of top disco songs which success translated into Moore's strongest showing on Billboard's Hot 100 and R&B charts with respective peaks of #47 and #17: Moore would have number of higher ranked R&B chart singles during the 1980s but "You Stepped Into My Life" would remain her final Hot 100 chart single.

The Melba album itself would be afforded a Billboard 200 peak of #114: its second single: the McFadden & Whitehead original "Pick Me Up I'll Dance" was a moderate club hit.

Despite the comparative success of the Melba album, Moore's followup album: Burn (1979), helmed by Pete Bellotte, showed a radical and commercially unsuccessful shift toward harder-edged dance music.

McFadden & Whitehead would contribute as songwriters and/or producers to Moore's albums: Closer (1980) and What a Woman Needs (1981), and to the singer's 1988 album I'm in Love: also Gene McFadden would produce and co-write Moore's two #1 R&B hits: "Falling" and (with Freddie Jackson) "A Little Bit More" both from Moore's 1986 album A Lot of Love.