Downing pushes past illness to record new CD

By Gail Mitchell

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Where there's a will, there's a way. And no one knows that better these days than singer/songwriter Will Downing, who is about to release his first album since being diagnosed with the rare muscular disease polymyositis.

"After Tonight" (Peak Records) hits shelves October 30, marking his debut on the label and the latest chapter in a critically acclaimed 20-year career for the mood-setting proponent of lovemaking rendezvous.

"I remember damn near crawling," Downing said of the debilitating symptoms that began surfacing in late 2006. Initially dismissing his weakness as simple tour fatigue, he received a serious wakeup call after dropping off his wife and daughter at a movie theater. He discovered he couldn't turn the steering wheel when he attempted to park the car.

"That's how weak I got," he recalled. "This disease takes away all your muscles, leaving an empty shell to rebuild all over again from the bottoms of your feet to the crown of your head."

After starting an aggressive exercise regimen ("You name it, and you've got to work it"), Downing learned he was lucky in one respect: His singing voice remained intact. Having already cut several songs before his diagnosis, Downing and his longtime collaborator, producer/musician Rex Rideout, clicked back into recording mode. Except this time around, Downing was working from a wheelchair and a hospital bed at home.

"Rex and I have the same recording setup in our homes," Downing said. "He would e-mail me tracks and then I'd have an engineer come by, put a mic in front of me and get to work."

Downing drew notice in 1991 with the Island album "A Dream Fulfilled." Accentuated by his molten baritone, a cover of Angela Bofill's "I Try" scorched its way to No. 13 on the R&B chart. Though crossover success has eluded him, Downing still claims a key position in the romance big leagues alongside Marvin Gaye and Luther Vandross.

His sensual yet jazzier approach to love songs holds forth on "After Tonight," whose collaborators include jazz artists Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum and Roy Ayers. The one exception is the track "God Is So Amazing."