Once Damaged, Funky Divas Reunite

A music producer holds auditions to assemble an R&B group; girls from around the country show up, and eliminations follow before a few winsome singers are selected. Their first album is a crossover hit and the disc is certified platinum. Label politics, jealousy, in-fighting, empty bank accounts, and a headstrong member who drops (or is pushed) out of the group leads to its dissolution. Sound familiar? Nope, it's not the Making the Band tale of how Diddy created Danity Kane.

Producer Denzil Foster and his partner, Thomas McElroy, had stars and dollar signs in their eyes when they settled on four supremely talented singers, with looks to match, to build a Supremes-style group c.1988.

Cindy, Dawn, Maxine, and Terry (l-r, top, 2008). In 1990, En Vogue's award-winning album Born to Sing was a runaway hit, and every grade school girl wanted to be them. Maybe you even fought over who got to be rebellious Dawn or perky Cindy in your homemade singing act? Did you practice singing "Hold On" into your Goody hairbrush, straining to strike the notes on the Jackson 5-sampled "Who's Loving You" intro? The harmonies were lush, spine-tingling, so pitch-perfect, I doubt Destiny's Child could stand in the booth with them.

Harmony on wax didn't translate to harmony offstage, though; by the late 1990s, even with stacks of hits to their credit, the group had imploded. Dawn became a member of Raphael Saddiq's Lucy Pearl after her Aftermath Records release failed to take off. The quartet changed its lineup over the years, but by then music had passed En Vogue by.

Now on the 20th anniversary of the release of their classic debut, the ladies are poised for a reunion tour. On Sunday, May 10, they'll take the stage in NYC, reportedly as, yes, a camera crew follows for a reality TV docu.

For this black girl, R&B girl groups were about more than music for me. Outfits like En Vogue represented a kind of high glamour that was appealing because I could relate and aspire to it. They chose heels over Timbs, minis over baggy jeans (left, 1992). Moreover, unlike most of the faces I saw in the 17 and Glamour mags I was so addicted to, these faces looked like mine. It must "feel good to be grooving again."