#107-108 Al B. Sure! (+ "Weird Al" Yankovic bonus)

With card #107, the 1991 MusiCards set transitions into its "rap and R&B" subset. We leave the "pop" section and its lime green tops and hot pink bottoms for this new color combo of (darker) green and blue. This part of the checklist is relatively short at just 40 cards-- with a healthy percentage of those belonging to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice-- then it's nothing but "rock" (and classic rock concert posters) to close out the first series before cycling through the genre subsets again in series 2.

Al B. Sure! is the stage name of Albert Joseph Brown III, and yeah, the exclamation point is part of it, which can make it awkward to write about the guy, lol. He's got a pair of cards in this set for us to check out today, plus a "Series 2 exclusive" variation to round things out.

That's pretty impressive that he got to work with the great Quincy Jones as a young artist just starting out. I don't recall hearing "Secret Garden" back in the day and it doesn't do much for me listening today, but I've always liked Al's early hit (I Can Tell You How I Feel About You) "Nite and Day".

Al B. Sure! - "Nite and Day"

Here's the next card, a shot of Mr. Sure! taking off his jacket.

His specialty of the "sexy slow jam" genre isn't really in my wheelhouse, but I can dig his more upbeat tunes. "Off on Your Own (Girl)" is another solid track from his debut album.

 

Turns out I've listened to Al B. Sure! many times without even realizing it, as I've owned the David Bowie album Black Tie White Noise since its release year of 1993 and hadn't put together (or forgot) that Al B. was the other featured vocalist on the title track.

David Bowie (feat. Al B. Sure!) - "Black Tie White Noise"

 Bowie's lone MusiCard is in the UK edition, by the way.

  

Yep, there's a variation of card #108.

 

The Super Stars logo bounces down to the opposite corner. I don't think photo composition issues were the catalyst for the variation this time, so let's check out the back and see if we can figure out why Pro Set was compelled to tweak this card and put out a revised version in series 2.

Ok, did you catch it? The original series 1 card has a typo in the name of the second album. 

Error: Private Times...and the Whole 91
Corrected: Private Times...and the Whole 9!

There's an exclamation mark causing trouble again. You'll also notice a new copyright under the back photo. Andre Harrell seems to have been the head of the label that signed Al. I wonder if Andre was the guy who called up his Pro Set contact person and chewed him out over the "Whole 91" screw up.

Al B. Sure!'s latest album is 2009's Honey I'm Home, and he's since spent time hosting a nationally syndicated radio show called Love and R&B. He's dealt with serious health problems in recent years, including a coma and a liver transplant. Let's hope he's recovering well. Here's the link to his Wikipedia entry for further reading. His entry currently makes no mention of Karyn White (seen on the blog recently at card #104), though her entry does still list Al B. Sure! as her life partner since 2012. For the sake of 1991 MusiCards romantic mojo, I hope they're still together.

CUSTOM CORNER

When you think of popular Al's in the music industry, especially those with punctuation in their stage names, there's another guy who might also come to mind. Yeah, let's go ahead and make a custom for "Weird Al" Yankovic.

This would have been a fun card to pull out of a pack in 1991. Weird Al definitely could've gotten a MusiCard based on his popularity at the time, but it didn't shake out that way, likely due to licensing issues. I like how he seems to be attempting to contort into the design here.

I even whipped up a back for this one.  

As a kid, I had a loose tape (no cover) of the first Weird Al album that got passed on to me by a friend, and I later bought UHF on cassette not long after that came out. I loved that dumb movie and even saw it on the big screen. 

Weird Al - Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies

I think those are the only Weird Al albums I had back in the pre-mp3 days, so I wasn't exactly a superfan or anything, but I generally got a kick out of his stuff and liked seeing him pop up on MTV or wherever. His ridiculous pseudo-biopic from 2022 starring Daniel Radcliffe is pretty great too.

Here's an "update" variation using a more recent photo. He's been consistently doing his thing for decades, putting out music and playing live. Keep on being weird, Al!

That'll do it for this time. Thanks for reading and just let me know in the comments if you've got anything to say about either Al featured in this post, such as your favorite songs or notable memories you've got.