Mark Calderon of Color Me Badd

Today on The Total Celebrity Show's Caregiver Dave Celebrity Segment, The Total Tutor Neil Haley and Caregiver Dave will interview Mark Calderon of Color Me Badd.

Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school.[3] The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block.[2] They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past,[4][5] such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.[6]

The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal.[3][7] They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap,[2] and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988.[8] One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.[4]