Tavares – Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel

Five Cape Verdean Brothers From New Bedford’s First American Neighborhood

Released in May 1976, “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” climbed to number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 16 weeks on the chart. More impressively, it hit number three on the Hot Soul Singles chart and spent two weeks at number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart alongside its B-side Don’t Take Away the Music. Internationally, it reached number one in the Netherlands, number four in the UK, and number 11 in Canada, becoming the group’s only gold record with over one million copies sold. What makes this success remarkable is that five brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts learned traditional Cape Verdean folk songs from their grandparents before their father Flash Americanized that music and guided them from local club act to disco legends.

The single peaked at number 15 for two consecutive weeks in August 1976, kept from climbing higher by Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music at number one. In Britain, it spent three weeks at number four during September and became one of the biggest disco hits of the summer. The song was split into two parts for the 7-inch single, with Part 1 running 3:28 and Part 2 at 3:10, while the full album version stretched to 6:32. At a moment when disco was exploding and the Bee Gees were perfecting the falsetto-driven sound that would dominate Saturday Night Fever, Tavares proved that smooth soul vocals could work just as powerfully on the dancefloor. This was their commercial breakthrough after three albums that established them as an R&B act, the moment they crossed over into mainstream pop consciousness.

Freddie Perren and Keni St. Lewis wrote the song, with Perren bringing his legendary Motown pedigree to Capitol Records after producing Jackson 5 hits like I Want You Back and ABC as part of The Corporation. The lyrics capture that classic disco theme of encountering someone so beautiful they must be supernatural, with the title suggesting heaven is incomplete without this angelic presence. The conversational opening line “Gotta be” sets up the premise before the brothers harmonize through verses describing this otherworldly beauty. Perren understood how to write for family groups, having just scored with the Sylvers’ Boogie Fever, and he crafted Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel specifically to showcase Tavares’ tight vocal blend while giving dancefloors an irresistible groove.

Recording took place during sessions for the Sky High album with Freddie Perren producing for Grand Slam Productions. The rhythm section featured James Gadson on drums, Scott Edwards on bass, Bob Boogie Bowles and Wah Wah Watson on guitars, with John Barnes handling piano and synthesizer duties. Paulinho da Costa and Bob Zimmitti added percussion, creating the propulsive feel that made the track a dancefloor staple. The album was dedicated to their mother Albina Tavares and to the memory of Perren’s mother Queen Esther Perren. The five brothers, Ralph, Arthur “Pooch,” Antone “Chubby,” Feliciano “Butch,” and Perry “Tiny” Tavares, delivered their trademark crisp vocalizing that made them favorites on shows hosted by Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, and Dick Clark. Their father Feliciano “Flash” Tavares, a Cape Verdean immigrant and self-taught guitarist, had spent decades Americanizing traditional Cape Verdean music while raising ten children between New Bedford and Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood.

Sky High arrived in May 1976 on Capitol Records, marking Tavares’ first collaboration with Freddie Perren and their biggest commercial success. The album peaked at number 20 on the R&B chart and number 24 on the Billboard 200. Two other singles followed: Don’t Take Away the Music reached number 34 on the Hot 100 and number four in the UK, while The Mighty Power of Love hit number 25 in Britain. This was the album that established Tavares in the UK market after radio had ignored their earlier hits like It Only Takes a Minute, which Jonathan King covered to greater British success. The group had evolved from their 1973 debut Check It Out through Northern soul ballads into disco-ready material without losing the vocal sophistication that defined them. New Bedford renamed a street Tavares Brothers’ Way in 2024, acknowledging the siblings who conquered global charts while never forgetting their Cape Verdean roots.

The song achieved remarkable longevity through Ben Liebrand’s 1985 remix, which returned it to European charts and introduced the track to a new generation of club audiences. The remix reached number three on various European dance charts and proved the song’s production was sturdy enough to withstand the evolving sounds of mid-1980s dance music. In 2013, all six Tavares brothers reunited on stage for the first time in 37 years when they received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The National R&B Music Society in Atlantic City. Ralph Tavares, who left the group in 1984 to work as a New Bedford court officer for 30 years before rejoining, died in December 2021 just two days before his 80th birthday. Pooch passed in April 2024 at 81, and Chubby followed in November 2025, also at 81. The song has been streamed over 112 million times on Spotify, proving its endurance across five decades.

Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel represents the moment when Cape Verdean-American culture, New Bedford’s tight-knit community, Motown’s production genius, and disco’s irresistible energy converged into three and a half minutes of pure joy. The brothers who learned folk songs from their grandparents, who spent the 1960s playing CYO dances and Portuguese times in New England, who covered Hall and Oates’ She’s Gone before the writers themselves made it a hit, finally claimed their place in pop history. Freddie Perren gave them the vehicle, but the Tavares brothers provided the soul, the harmony, the familial chemistry that no producer could manufacture. Their mother always told them to sing pretty for the people, and on this track, they delivered something more than pretty. They created a disco classic that still fills dancefloors, a gold record that validated everything Flash Tavares taught his sons about honoring tradition while embracing the future.