UPDATES: Word is filtering out that Maxwell fell and broke a glass of wine. A freak accident. Meanwhile, Jerry Greenberg tells me that “We’ve lost a great, great person. She was so sweet.” Greenberg says he signed Brownstone after stopping them from going to RCA. He say that Destiny’s Child opened for them toward the end of their run.
EARLIER: Reports everywhere today that Charmayne Maxwell, a member of the 90s singing group Blackstone, died in a mysterious fall over the weekend. She was 46 years old. Blackstone was the first and most successful group Michael signed to MJJ Records in 1994 with his label president, the legendary Jerry Greenberg.
Maxwell’s husband, record producer Carsten Schack (known as Soulshock, a Danish born musician) says he came home and found Charmayne (Maxi) bleeding and unconscious. It seems like she fell and sliced her neck on a piece of glass. Police say there’s nothing suspicious so far. Keep refreshing.
Brownstone received a Grammy nomination for the record “If You Love Me” in 1995.
Four years ago, Nicci Gilbert, one of the other members, told an interviewer about Jackson: “…we auditioned for him. We met Jerry Greenberg first. I can’t tell the full story because we are doing a book; that’s going to be exiting. The short story is that we met Jerry Greenberg, we auditioned for him, and he said he had someone else that he wanted us to meet. At the time we did not know who it was. We auditioned for a second time in a pitch black conference room. After the second audition was over, we discovered that Michael was there; of course we were extremely excited. Later on, we were told that Michael fell in love with us and wanted us to be the first artists signed to his record label.”
Gilbert added: ” I remember the first time that I met him. He gave us the advice that, like Coca-Cola; we should always conduct ourselves as a brand.”
