Patti Austin: Philippines Produces World's Greatest Singers!

At the age of 75, American singer Patti Austin proved that time only adds to her charm during her remarkable performance as a special guest at the Babyface concert held on October 27 at the SM MOA Arena in Pasay City. The Grammy Award-winning artist, who began her singing journey at just four years old, captivated the audience with her stories between songs.

“This is old lady music. Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of the show. We’re going to just plow through lots and lots of stuff, you know. I’m telling you in advance, because I know the greatest singers in the world seem to come from the Philippines! Because there’s something in the water I keep drinking. But hopefully, you will know the material. But I’m going to ask you to sing with me later on, okay?” Patti said after her opening number.

Patti chose her own composition, “Say You Love Me,” which she wrote in 1978, as her second song for the night. “So this next song is the very first song I ever wrote. And I’m not sure if Minnie Ripperton stole my song or I stole her song. I’m not sure. I was 17 when I wrote this song and I don’t remember if Minnie had already put out ‘Loving You.’ But I think it was somewhere in my brain because I came up with this little ditty. Somebody told me that teenage girls have kind of picked up on this song and when they want to get a guy, they just play this song. So if that’s working for anybody out there, let me know.”

During the concert, Patti also shared her experience working on her first hit song, a duet with multi-awarded singer and producer James Ingram, who passed away in 2019. “So I had the great fortune for a few years to make some wonderful music with a wonderful guy named James Ingram. So we’re going to do a couple of the songs that I had the great fortune to record with the wonderful James Ingram.”

Their song “Baby, Come To Me” was released in 1981 and paved the way for Patti and James to work together again not long after. “I just remembered the first time I came here (to the Philippines) was because of that song. So James and I went on to record together again because we did so good the first time. And that song ‘Baby, Come To Me,’ was written by a guy named Rod Temperton. And I don’t know if you know who Rod Temperton is. But if you know a song that goes, ‘This is the thriller! Thriller night!’ Rod Temperton wrote that. And he also wrote ‘Boogie Night’ and ‘Always and Forever.’ A great writer. So we got to do ‘Baby, Come to Me’ with him. But it did really good and so I was asked to sing a piece of music for a movie called Best Friends and it starred Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn. Older people can explain who they are. It got very quiet in here. Well they were big, giant, gigantic stars and so the picture company said got to do a rom-com with those two because it will be big,” she recalled.

The second song they ended up working on as part of a movie soundtrack, was “How Do You Keep The Music Playing.” “I had this little bit of a song that I was singing that came through in the middle of the movie. And Alan and Marilyn Bergman wrote the lyrics to the song, were in the studio where I was recording. And they convinced the director of the movie who was there at the time, that they should present the entire song to him and if he liked it, that it should be the closing song for the movie. And he loved the idea and he said yes and he said, ‘You need to get James Ingram in here because Patti just had a big hit so why not put them together? It will be a big hit.’

“But James was not in town. He was in Japan. He was coming back the next day. So he went to the studio the next day and we recorded this song that I’m going to do next. The movie came out. It was a disaster. But the song was nominated for an Academy Award. And so, for the first of the two times that I’ve performed at the Oscars, we sang this song. Now I must tell you bad news before I begin. We lost. We lost to a crustacean. We lost to a crab. We lost to a song called ‘Under the Sea.’”

Patti also performed the song “Through The Test of Time” which was written for her by Ambrosia singer David Pack. “So another wonderful songwriter that I had the opportunity to work with is a guy named David Pack. He’s a wonderful writer and this is just very near and dear to me, this song because David Pack wrote it just for me.”

Before ending her set, Patti was given a standing ovation by the crowd before leaving the stage.

In an interview with Tonight with Boy Abunda in 2017, Patti talked about what she loves the most about her Filipino fans. “How do you not love someone who loves you as much as this audience loves me? There’s always this wonderful joy and heartfelt kindness and love, not only in the audiences that comes to see me, [but] in the hearts of the people from the Philippines who are all over the world.”