Hi-Five

Having arrived on the music scene at the right time, just as New Edition,

the reigning Jackson Five replacements had begun to splinter, Hi-Five was

the new face of R&B. After garnering three platinum albums, two number one

hits, two Grammy nominations, and two Soul Train music awards, Hi-Five sat

at the top of the charts as the new reigning kings of R&B.



Hi-Five was formed in 1990 and consisted of Tony Thompson, Roderick "Pooh" Clark, Marcus Sanders, Russell Neal, and Toriano Easley. Easley was later replaced by Treston Irby. Later members included Shannon Gill and Terrence Murphy.



Hi-Five was signed to Jive Records and released their first album, Hi-Five, in 1990. The album went multi-platinum and contained songs written and produced by award-winning New Jack Swing hitmakers Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle. It included such singles as "I Just Can't Handle It", "I Can't Wait Another Minute", and their biggest hit to date, "I Like the Way (The Kissing Game)", which went to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The group enjoyed mainstream worldwide success and received comparisons to many of their R&B counterparts, namely New Edition.



Hi-Five's second LP, Keep It Goin' On, came out in 1992. Their success continued with several hits from this album, including "She's Playing Hard To Get" and the R. Kelly-penned "Quality Time". In 1993, Hi-Five emerged with a third platinum album, Faithful, which featured the songs "Unconditional Love" and "Never Should Have Let You Go". After Hi-Five disbanded in 1994, lead singer Tony Thompson released a solo album, Sexsational. He scored yet another hit from this album with the single "I Wanna Love Like That".



Unfortunately Tony Thompson passed away on June 1, 2007 in his hometown of Waco, Texas. At the time Tony was working on material for a new album that is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2007. One of the songs

Tony completed was a remake of the great Donny Hathaway classic "For All We Know".