McKnight Features Wonder, Timberlake on LP

May 14, 2001 -- With his latest LP, R&B singer Brian McKnight found help from two very different directions — 51-year-old songwriter and soul-singing legend Stevie Wonder and 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake, who some might consider flavor-of-the-month pop fluff.

But McKnight doesn't see Timberlake as a lightweight.

"Justin is the little white brother that I never had, let me just say that," he says, laughing. "I've known him since he was, like, 9, and he's probably the greatest young singer that's out there. I want people that denigrate boy bands to understand that this kid is the real thing, and that's why I put him on my record."

Timberlake joins McKnight on a track called "My Kind of Girl," while Wonder turns in a guest spot on "Without You."

"Stevie I've known forever, and this is the first chance we've actually had to do something on a record, so it's been fantastic," McKnight says. He adds that the album, the name of which he wouldn't reveal, features several other collaborations.

McKnight hooked up a well-timed collaboration with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs on his 1997 album, Anytime, and a Christmas album from the following year — titled Bethlehem — teamed the singer with Boyz II Men and Take 6.

He ran the show himself, however, with 1999's Back at One, a critical and popular success. But McKnight says he doesn't want to merely duplicate his last effort.

"My last record," he says, "was really focused on being very hit-driven — pop, hit, da-da-da-da, big, huge — I still have that on this record, but I really tried to go back to the earlier stuff that I did … to be a lot more musical, on the fringes of the real straight-ahead, hit-driven things that I had to put on the album."