Ronnie DeVoe cheerfully hugs me and pulls out a chair, the guest of honor seat next to him. Since I last saw the fellas (which wasn't really too long ago) they've developed into very elegant well-to-do young men. They smilingly allow me to inspect their appearances, and I compliment them on their hot new looks. Hesitantly they ask, "Did you see us accept our-." I cut them off, congratulating them on behalf of the Right On! readers for their American Music Award. "I was cheering for you from my seat. Were you on pins and needles? We should talk about this first; it's such a big honor."
Ralph Tresvant says it didn't dawn on him who won at first for Favorite Soul Artist. "I didn't really think about winning, I just sat there. While they were reading the list of nominees, it didn't dawn on me that we were in the category, not even when they said 'New Edition.' It wasn't until after they said we won that I reacted. I was confused at first, because they had shown a video clip of 'Count Me Out.' Then I realized that we didn't win for the song, we won for the group category. But I was still shocked. I just assumed we were there, once again, just to make our annual appearance at the American Music Awards. But to take one home, that was marvelous."
"Ronnie, you were awfully choked up onstage. This must have really meant a lot to you," I softly let him know I was observing him closely. "You saw that?" he exclaims. He looks away as though embarrassed, just for a minute, though. "I guess it was because I was the one who least expected the award. I was in my chair groaning, 'Oh, no, why are they playing this record' and then they announced Run-DMC, so I started cheering them on and then I started cheering for Cameo because I figured they were going to win. And then when they finally said we won...I can't even explain the feeling. I just know I want to feel it over and over again."
"What's going to happen to it? Are you going to take turns keeping it," I tease them. "No, we're going to have individual ones made and keep the group award in our business office we plan to open up," Ricky Bell answers. He describes the thrilling feel of winning. "I didn't expect to win either. I thought it was going to be someone else. Since our last concert tour, we haven't been out that much, and I thought you had to have done a lot of recent things to qualify. I didn't realize they went by overall contributions. It made us feel good to win. It felt like a natural high. I want to have that feling again. This is giving us inspiration to work harder."
Did a lot of celebrities congratulate you?" "Not only celebrities, but other people as well. They said it was about time. The biggest compliment was from Dick Clark, though. He said he was happy and he hopes we win a lot more in the future."
"I listened to an interview with Barbara Mandrell, who said even though it's an honor to be nominated, it's awfully disappointing to lose. What do you guys have to say about that?" "We never really felt that way because when we've been nominated before, there were other groups who we felt were doing better than us at that time. So when other groups won, we were never shocked or surprised."
"Did anyone have a small speech prepared just in case?" Rick shakes his head. Michael Bivins chimes in, "we just got up there at a loss for words. From the moment they said, 'New Edition,' everything I ever wanted to say disappeared for a little while. We sat back down in our seats and said, 'We wish we could do it all over again.' Then we decided, 'If it didn't come out, it wasn't meant to come out, because what we said sounded natural.' Maybe next year if we win another award, we can get up there and thank all the people we wanted to thank."
Ricky went on to say, "When we got up there on the platform, it didn't seem like anyone was going to say anything, so I just went ahead and started talking. Right then and there I just said whateever it is that I said."
Since I'm not a recording artist, I'll never know what it's like to be a nominee (although, of course, I was thrilled for New Edition), I decide to ask the guys what does it feel like to know that a voting committee has at least selected you to be one of the top five choices for a category. In between eating his appetizer, Michael says, "When you go to the award show, it's like, you don't know how to feel or what to think. The vote won't be revealed for awhile, and the ballot is hidden away in an envelope, so when the presenters are going through the motions, I'm sure everyone's palms are sweating, you get nervous and the whole bit. When you do win, you just sit there for awhile 'cause it hasn't digested. And then it hits you that everyone's looking at you. That's when you realize you won. Then you just have to run up there and say something."
"What did your families say when they found out?" Ronnie explains, "I was there with my mother. I wanted to hug her, but the person sitting next to me was Ralph, so I just grabbed a hold of him. My family was all happy. They were jumping up and down at home. I called everyone up because I was just too happy."
"I called my mother," Michael remembers. "She said it was about time that we started winning awards for all the work that we've done. Another reason why I'm glad we won is that we never really kew where we stood in the industry. So now that we won the award we can tell. We could hear the applause behind us. It was as if everyone was in favor of us winning. Now we're on the map.... we're someone to reckon with."
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