Donnie
2003
Donnie is a soul singer of rare talent, whose roots were in the Hebrew Pentacostal Church and was a cousin of Marvin Gaye. Then based in Atlanta, he first came to the attention of Giant Step in the late 1990s, when musician Khari Simmons sent Maurice Bernstein a demo cassette of various artists from Atlanta’s Earthseed Collective.
Giant Step had recently signed a label deal with Epic Records and travelled down to Atlanta for an artist showcase that featured India Arie, Donnie, and Jiva. Bernstein couldn’t persuade the label executives to sign India, but was able to get funding to make some demos with Donnie. Engaging Steve “Scotsman” Harvey to produce the tracks, they started on the road to record Donnie’s concept album The Colored Section.
Luckily, Epic passed on the demos (“Do You Know,” “Rocketship,” and “Heaven Sent”) and Bernstein signed Donnie to Giant Step Records to release The Colored Section independently. The Boston Globe called the album “the best soul record since Stevie Wonder’s recordings in the 1970s.” The album was critically and commercially successful - to the point that Motown approached Giant Step to re-release the album as a joint venture, to give it wider distribution and more marketing muscle.
Giant Step independently releasing Donnie's Colored Section was a very proud moment for us. It made a musical statement against the mainstream of what was acceptable in R&B at the time. To celebrate the release of the album, we wanted to make an extra fuss and decided to do it in style. We took over the now defunct Sky Studios on Broadway in the Village, an incredible apartment/property with a grand piano, swimming pool, and garden. The location was infamous for many movie moments so having Donnie perform and then celebrate there made it an even more special experience.
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