All-4-One

Doo wop-inspired adult contemporary R&B group All-4-One enjoyed platinum-selling, Grammy-winning success with their earliest releases. While the vocalists' popularity was not sustained during the late '90s, they continued to record and perform for over 20 years. The Los Angeles-based quartet -- Tony Borowiak, Jamie Jones, Delious Kennedy, and Alfred Nevarez -- formed in 1993 and debuted the next year with an a cappella cover of "So Much in Love," a song popularized 30 years earlier by the Tymes. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and was trumped by the follow-up "I Swear." Another cover, this one relatively contemporary -- John Michael Montgomery's version was released only a few months earlier -- it topped the Hot 100 and went platinum. Due to these hits, the group's self-titled debut album, split almost evenly between ballads and relatively uptempo post-new jack swing R&B, went multi-platinum.

In 1995, the group won a Grammy in the category of Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "I Swear." They answered it with "I Can Love You Like That," another remake of a contemporary ballad popularized by Montgomery. It was All-4-One's third and last Top Five pop hit, and it pushed its parent album, And the Music Speaks, to platinum status. Neither one of the album's other singles fared nearly as well, and from that point on, All-4-One's profile was considerably smaller. From 1996 through 2002, three singles -- "Someday," "I Will Be Right Here," and "Beautiful as U" -- hit only the adult contemporary chart. During the 2000s and early 2010s, the group released a Japan-only album and a couple independent sets, most notably 2015's Twenty +, which acknowledged their longevity and mixed new material with re-recordings of career highlights. ~ Andy Kellman