Issue 72 digital edit

The Quintessential info provider for the Soul Survivor 1ST OCT - 31ST NOV 2017 Issue 72 - The Black History Issue

News Reviews & Interviews Eric Benet, Emilio Castillio (Tower Of Power), Kiki Dee, Shirley Jones (The Jones Girls), Eddie Piller, Jeffrey Daniel (Shalamar), thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk Tony Q aka Frenchie, Bruce ‘Mississippi’ Johnson

WHAT’S INSIDE? 3 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH ERIC BENET 8 DARRELL’S FUNK BOX 9 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH EMILIO CASTILLO 14 NORTHERN SOUL SURVIVORS - KIKI DEE 20 2000 BLACK HISTORY 21 RECORD REVIEWS 26 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH SHIRLEY JONES 32 JEMMA HATT SPEAKS WITH JEFFERY DANIEL (SHALAMAR) 34 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH EDDIE PILLER 36 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH TONY Q 41 FITZROY SPEAKS WITH BRUCE JOHNSON 44 EVENT REVIEWS 46 WHAT’S GOING ON All adverts are placed in good faith and The Soul Survivors Magazine take no responsibility for any issues arising from the use of those who have advertised.

All dates are correct at time of going to print – please check with venue or promoter if unsure.

All rights reserved 2006 - 2017 © The Soul Survivors Magazine It is essential to note that all artwork, adverts and listings must be confirmed and sent in to fitzroy@ thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk before Monday 3rd November 2017 in order to meet the graphic designer and print 3 week preparation.

This will ensure that the magazine for the October and November Issue is ready and out on the streets.

Thanks in advance. The Soul Survivors Magazine Team!

Suite 013, 986 Garratt Lane, Tooting Broadway, London SW17 0ND E: fitzroy@thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk M: 07956 312931 C fitzroy.facey C Fitzroytheoriginalsoulsurvivor C TheSoulSurvivors MSoulSurvivors1

Page 2 - Issue 72

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Welcome to Issue 72 of The Soul Survivors Magazine Greetings for the seasonal Hi Tension ‘Autumn Love’ issue 72 of The Soul Survivors Magazine. Welcome to another action packed like a Terminator Si Fi movie edition, also coinciding with a Gil Scott Heron classic ‘Black History (The World)’ month, for us in the UK. Bearing that in mind, I was compelled to put pen to paper, and depict an often Hi Tension ‘Unspoken’ subject of racist and bigoted attitudes, within this questionable Maze classic ‘We Are One’ family. In fact some of this issue’s interviewees both ‘Black and White’ like the MJ classic, highlight various elements and perspective of that subject.

Due to lack of space I felt it was apt to pay our Roll Call Of Fame respects in this section to a few travelling on the OJay’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’. Melissa will be most remembered for singing lead for Soul II Soul’s beautiful classic ‘Wish’.

She unfortunately lost her battle to a long-term illness. She is the Mother of singer Alexander Burke. I’ll never forget witnessing Melissa introducing Jean Carne to her then unknown daughter, at the Jazz Cafe January 2008. The look on Jean’s face when Alex sang to her was of total astonishment. By the end of that year, Alexander Burke had won X Factor.

Walter Brecker one half of the Steely Dan dynamic duo, sadly passed aged 67. Apart from ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ and the inspiration for MJ’s ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Do It Again’, I acquired a few albums that happened to also be sampled in hip-hop. These include ‘Peg’ (De La Soul) ‘The Fez’ and ‘Green Earrings’ (Ice Cube) and ‘Black Cow’ (Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz). ‘Peg’ was covered by Mike Mandel whilst Norman Connors and Zo covered ‘Black Cow’.

RIP Walter Brecker, a great musician and songwriter who on the day of his passing, made me spin the funkiest jazz soul SD groove ‘I Got News’ on ‘Rotation’ like Herb Alpert.

Providentially mentioned in the Emilio Castillo interview back in August 2017, ex TOP lead vocalist Rick Stevens passed aged 77 on the 5th September 2017. Rick who joined the band on the ‘Bump City’ album singing with his trademark rasp, the bullet proof ‘You Got To Funkafize’. He led an extraordinary, complex and most certainly full life and made a return to music soon after 2012. Sadly he lost his battle with cancer.

This issues interviewees include two Eric Benet interviews I did with him which was broadcast on radio circa 2011-2012. I spoke with Tower Of Power founder Emilio Castillio and with much ‘ASAP’ pace Shirley Jones of The Jones Girls.

Our main Northern Soul Survivors feature is with a northern girl with plenty of soul Kiki Dee. Dedicated fan Jemma Hatt talks with Shalamar’s Jeffrey Daniel and ‘Modfather’ of Acid Jazz Eddie Piller speaks briefly about his dream deal featuring Leroy Hutson on his label. Representing Birmingham Tony Q aka Frenchie talks about the soulful midlands and lastly I spoke with the soulful jazz, blues and soul baritone gentle giant Bruce ‘Mississippi’ Johnson. So enjoy this issue and just a note that we will be by the next issue be ready for the nominations for the Soul Survivor Awards in Feb 2018.

Thanks to the usual suspects and contributors who make this happen. Enjoy.

Fitzroy * Correction: In issue 71 the event review for Sun & Soul In Cyprus was written

by Anna Marshall and not Anna B.

Fitzroy speaks w ith

ERIC BENÉT Making his presence felt in the early 1990s Eric Benet hailing from the ‘Happy Days’ territory of Milwaukee had a smooth Fonzie ambience about him and was especially a big double thumbs up heartthrob with the ladies. This interview is constructed from two radio interviews I did in 2011 and 2012 transcribed from a period between the heights of his ‘Lost In Time’ and ‘The One’ albums.

With some documented Foster Sylvers ‘Misdemeanour’ episodes behind him with the curve balls that life throws at you, things certainly seem to have become ‘Better And Better’ for Eric B. He comes over this October so fella’s get ya groove on cause it’s destined to be a Kool & The Gang ‘Ladies Night’ filled venue.

Can you give us an idea of what you’ll be performing at The Birmingham Luxury Soul Weekender?

I’m actually gonna do some from my first record and bring it up to ‘Lost In Time’.

I’m gonna try and do a cohesive well put together show of all my work. Gotta have ‘Spend My Life’ and ‘Georgie Porgy’.

I think you really need to do ‘Why You Follow Me’ That may not be a bad idea. That went down quite well over in France. Do people know that song in the UK? What made you cover Georgie Porgy and was it Luther with Charme or Cheryl Lynn with Toto that inspired you?

I cannot take full credit for that. I was hanging out in the studio with my good friends called Something For The People.

(Fitzroy: “Oh I remember them well.”) One of them pulled out the actual LP vinyl of the Toto version and he said this shit would be sick if you did the drums and we get Faith (Faith

Evans). As soon as he mentioned it I thought yeah that would be hot. As soon as we took a sample from the song and I started messing with the groove it was fire. Luckily Faith was already an established artist and I was kind of new. She had heard some of my stuff from the album ‘True To Myself’ and she felt me as an artist. She was just a joy to work with in the studio and I always promised myself that if I found a nice song for us to cover, I’d hit her up again and see if she’d be down. So when my cousin and I wrote ‘Feel Good’ for this record we immediately called Faith and she was down for the cause.

When ‘A Day In The Life’ dropped in the late 90s I was DJ-ing amongst a circuit of DJ’s and we would discuss amongst us what we thought was the best tracks off an album. Most people went for Georgie Porgy (Eric: “That’s nice.”) But for me it’s ‘Why You Follow Me’. (Eric: “Ahh hahah) and eventually others started to cotton on to it. Now Georgie Porgy is a classic but today when ‘Why You Follow Me’ comes on they go nuts. (Eric: Really? I’m really glad your telling me this now thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

because the band and I will, need to take that out and polish it up a little bit.”) I’m telling you it would be like Michael Jackson, God rest his soul, doing a concert and not performing ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’.

have to do it.

Ok that’s loud and clear Fitzroy.

So what was your reaction when you saw the response? I hope you will continue to do it in your UK sets from now on?

How did Ali Shaheed Mohammed and you come up with the strings and latino arrangements that work so well on that particular track?

Honestly this is how that song started. It was Ali and a very dear friend of ours who unfortunately is no longer with us, who happens to be hands down the greatest guitarist I’ve worked with or ever met. His name is Spanky who worked with D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq. (Fitzroy: “I’ve heard that accolade about him from when I interviewed Sy Smith.”) He was really just an angel and a musical prophet on the guitar. A beautiful man and spirit. We were all sitting down and I start with the melody of the chorus and then he came off with that crazy guitar melody. The string arrangement was done by Larry Gold (Fitzroy: “Oh of MFSB.”) Yes, and Shaheed made those crazy drum beats.

What is it with you and latin rhythms like ‘Spanish Fly’ that so reminds me of Stevie Wonders ‘Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing’.

Thank you so much. I don’t know what my deal is with the latin rhythm but I always want to do something with the rhythm and the melodies of latin music. They are so unbearably sexy to me. Without fail in making an album I’ll hear the rhythm and start singing to it. It’s what happened with ‘Spanish Fly’ and ‘Why You Follow Me’. The marriage of the melodies. The marriage of the latin rhythm melodies and the guitars are so intoxicating and I fall in love with that.

Mr Eric Benet How are you man how you feeling?

I’m cool how are you?

First of all that ‘Georgie Porgy’ remix, that was fire. I’ve never heard that before you’ve got to get me that.

Ok Eric I’ll forward it to Christy Black to get it to you.

Before we get into the new album do you remember that we spoke two years ago just before you did Birmingham’s Luxury soul? (Eric: “Yeah man, absolutely.”). We met back stage after Birmingham and you thanked me, because when going through your track listing for the shows, you were not intending to perform ‘Why You Follow Me’ and I said you Page 4 - Issue 72

Yeah, you were saying you cannot go out on that stage and not do ‘Why You Follow Me’ so we had to work it out.

Absolutely man. Sometimes it’s real hard to judge which songs react differently in different regions. You have to actually talk to the people. Like ‘Why You Follow Me’ here in the States, it wasn’t a big hit for me. But when I travel overseas especially in the UK or France, if I don’t do that song, the audience is livid. Like “No, no, no, no, no, you are going to get back on that stage and do that song”. It’s an incredibly fun song to perform and I just need to be reminded, so when I do the UK or France the audience just goes bananas. It’s awesome.

I’m glad to have been of service. (Eric laughs.) “I’ll send you a commission cheque.”)

I think it’s fair to conclude that you’ve been busy since we last spoke two years ago. Congratulations for getting married to Manuela and being a Father again to your daughter Lucia.

I got to say man life is getting ‘Better and Better’. Being a Father at such a young age with India there are so many challenges and incredible blessings and joys that go with being a Father. To be doing it at this stage of my life, I’ve grown with so much more wisdom in so many different ways. Also to have this amazing partner to raise this beautiful baby, sometimes I just pinch myself because my life is so incredible right now and I’m so grateful.

That’s good to hear, you have an album out now called ‘The One’ and you’ve transcended from your Warner Brothers contract to joining a label called Jordan House Records which is affiliated with EMI. How smooth was that transition?

It’s been incredible because Jordan House is my own label.

It just feels incredibly empowering as the guy who calls the shots and I’m in control of my career. When you’re an artist on a huge conglomerate label like Warner Brothers, you are always fighting for attention, as there is only so much money to go around for marketing. The way the music business has been going over the years, that amount has been steadily declining. So it feels good to have the regimes in my own

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

hands and take control of my career and have a great distribution partner like EMI. Your album is balanced with up-tempo songs and classic Eric Benet type ballads. Of all the ballads ‘News For You’ reminds me of EWF’s ‘That’s The Way Of The World’ and ‘Sensual Come Together’ which has classic 1970s hallmarks. Why does that era resonate so much for you?

Part of it is by design, that I was born and grew up was from that era. Falling in love with music was from that type of music so when I’m in the studio I try to create that 70s type of energy, which tells me that I’ve got the formula right. I love live instrumentation and not relying on technology in the production of the song but rather to showcase the incredible skill and ability of the musicians who play horns, strings and percussion instruments. I love just putting vocals on tracks that are just pure, un-doctored, unprocessed and where you can hear the raw and the grit of my voice and it’s not autotuned. It’s part of why and how a song resonates in your soul, because the more human the actual production is, the more emotional attachment you’re going to have to that music.

I love just putting vocals on tracks that are just pure, undoctored, unprocessed and where you can hear the raw and the grit of my voice and it’s not auto-tuned.

You’ve done a songs on the album with your daughter India.

‘Muzik’ a funky duet that reflects the contrast and moods in the relationship between the two of you, having both a kind of marriage and unconditional love, like one has with music. How was it recording that song?

That song with India, we both wrote that song together. Being in the studio with my daughter India and recording that song is a proud moment because she does her thing and is very quick in the studio and is an amazing individual and we have fun.

Tell us about ‘Lucia’s Lullaby Here In My Arms’, because again Page 6 - Issue 72

before I saw the video it reminded me of Christmas as it has a waltz music theme. When I saw your video breakdown it described exactly how I felt upon hearing the song. (Eric laughs) It’s dedicated with love to your young daughter with a grand piano and violins in tow. It was co-written with your wife right?

Yeah that was a beautiful process of how that song came to be. When my wife was pregnant with Lucia when her tummy was getting bigger, I used to hum this melody to our unborn baby. This became Lucia’s Lullaby and around the time before Lucia was born, I asked my wife to write some lyrics with me. The lyrics are so heartfelt so I wanted the production to be almost stripped down to piano and strings. Like you said the melody clearly sounds like a Viennese Waltz or something like that. To this day Lucia if she cannot sleep, I’ll pick her up and sing that lullaby and she immediately falls asleep. She’s 17 months old now and she says sing ‘Dada’s song’ which is Lucia’s lullaby.

Did you write the song ‘Come Together’ with Osunlade?

Yeah and it was written so many years ago around the time I wrote ‘Femininity’ from my first solo album ‘True To Myself’.

‘Come Together’ was a song that he and I wrote at the same time. The subject matter was something I believe the label thought was too racy, which is hilarious when you think of some of the lyrics in songs right now. But this was years ago, in fact almost 20 years. I always loved this song and decided to do a newer version which I think works.

Because you now own your own label you can make those kind of designs your self.

Absolutely.

Thanks Eric Thanks man and don’t forget to send me that George Benson ‘Give Me The Night’ mix of ‘Georgie Porgy’, Fitz.

No problem Eric.

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Well, what can I say? My last column, on ‘early bird’ tickets, garnered the biggest response that I have ever received in ten years of Darrell’s Funk Box, and it was all quite positive. So I would like to say thank you to everyone that approached me, either in person or via electronic means, to tell me what he or she thought. You’re views are welcome, I’m thick skinned so if you want to slate me, you can.

Anyhow, July and August were super busy, gig wise. Brit Funk Association at Campsoul, Gwen Dickey @ Margate Weekender, Dego & The 2000Black Family at The Jazz Cafe, were just some of the fantastic highlights of the past two months, and these concerts have one very unique phenomenon that links all of them, and that is the almost total lack of concert etiquette.

When you go to the cinema there is an unwritten code of conduct. No talking, no mobiles, sweets and snacks in rustle free containers, even taking your shoes off is considered a lack of courtesy. There is no such control, however, when it comes to live performances. At the 2016 Luxury Soul Weekender people were so outraged by people talking during Kashif’s show that the promoters were forced to ask people at LSW 2017 to remain quiet whilst the acts were on stage.

Unfortunately, I am one of the chat filled culprits that can spoil it for others and I was, rightly so, told to be quiet.

The Jazz Cafe, in London, used to have ‘S.T.F.U during performances’ written down a post just behind the stage, and it certainly made you think about your behaviour, a bit like those speed signs that flash up when you’re driving through a built up area. But with the recent refurbishment of The Jazz Cafe that order for silence has disappeared and my recent visit to the venue, for Dego & 2000Black, there was what seemed like at least a third of the audience that spent the whole time talking, loudly! The whole freaking time! It brought to mind Page 8 - Issue 72

a concert by our very own Don.E for the launch of ‘Future Rares 2’. There was some chatter that night and I asked Don.E what his thoughts were on the subject. The man, as gracious as ever, said that it depends on the size of the venue and that he would demand attention and quiet in a smaller setting. He went on to say, and I agree with him, that people are always going to talk through shows. I should know, I’m one of them!

I’m ashamed to say that some of the best giggles I’ve had, on a night out, have been when I’m at a concert. I don’t know why, but there is something about being in a confined space that makes me want to have the crack!

Another oddity that occurs during gigs, well, I say oddity, but it really is the norm nowadays is when an artist or band performs a well-known number. All of a sudden arms are up in the air, not in appreciation of the song, no. Because attached to the end of these arms are camera phones, and now dozens upon dozens of tiny bright screens pepper your view of the stage. During Gwen Dickeys set at the recent Margate Soul Festival I counted forty of these devices in my field of vision.

You’re probably wondering, at this stage, just how I even noticed seeing as I would have been larking about, but you see I am very easily distracted. A teeny T.V held aloft just inches from my face, mesmerises me far more than the actual artists playing their hearts out, on stage, a mere twenty feet from me, I’m like a cat transfixed by a laser pen.

Despite all of this going on I’m in no doubt that none of this is done out of disrespect for the artists. Many spend hard earned money and travel long distances to see their heroes.

It’s just that once they get to the venue their mates are there, the very people they champion are in the house and, well, it’s a laugh innit. Isn’t it?

Many thanks to Don.E for your thoughts.

Emilio

ith Fitzroy speaks w

Emilio Castillo

At a time when there was time for racial/social harmony and unity in the USA, Emilio Castillo co-founded a band who created a specific sound, that come from “The Beats Of San Francisco” (By default Emilio should have been involved in the theme tune to Michael Douglas and Karl Malden’s TV Cop classic). Championing the very lucrative and talented Bay Area, Tower Of Power, formed in the late 1960’, were at the helm of sailing that soul, jazz and funk ship, alongside the pioneering multiracial outfit Sly & The Family Stone. As part of the Tower of Power horn section outside of the main bands tried and test brand of R&B music, Emilio graced many a famous artist’s track painting textures to their music canvas. TOP are coming here in October doing dates in and outside London so if you wanna get an idea of ‘What Is Hip?’ Read and enjoy. RIP Rick Stevens ex lead vocalist of TOP who sadly passed 5th Sept 2017.

Tell me about your background coming from a mixed Greek and Mexican origin, growing up in the Bay area of San Francisco before you formed the band?

I originally grew up in Detroit Michigan until I was eleven years old and my Father was a bartender. Both of my parents were very much into listening to music like Nat King Cole, Bill Doggett, Elvis Presley and The Platters. At the age of eleven, after my father lost his job, he took us across the country to the San Francisco Bay Area to live. We moved to the suburbs to a city called Fremont. At the age fourteen, after being caught stealing a T Shirt, my Father made me apologise to whom I’d stolen it from and had me fill out a notebook on why I’d never steal again. He told me to come up with something that would keep me out of trouble or else I wouldn’t be let out of my room. The Beatles had just come out and I told my

Dad I wanted to play music so he took me to the music store with my brother. He said pick any instrument you want, so I picked the saxophone and my brother chose the drums. Most people start by practicing for years and then join a band. We did the exact opposite by starting a band and learning our instruments after. We’d be in our living room practicing with my friend Jody on guitar playing the intro of ‘Pretty Woman’

by Roy Orbison. He’d play that over and over with my brother banging on the drum and me squeaking on the saxophone and my Mother walked in, having listened to us, and she said, “They’re going to be big stars.” I’ve had a band ever since then. My Father got me some very good sax, organ and guitar teachers. Then after advising some of his musician friends that I was really into music, he asked their advice on what to do. They advised my Dad to get me a music theory teacher who was Dave Brubeck’s bass player. His name was Norman thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

Bates. Once a week for six months I studied with him and at the same time I was in the garage trying to work out the chords for some of the latest music hits and trying to teach the band various songs. We sounded pretty good but then we saw this one band that had three horns and very soulful lead and background vocals. They were called The Spyders and I had never heard anything so soulful in my life. The next day I hired an incredible trumpet player named Mic Gillette from Fremont. We had already hired ‘Rocco’ Prestia on bass and with my brother on drums and me on sax we started playing soul music. It was around the time when Sly Stone (who went on to start the band Sly & The Family Stone) was a disc jockey.

They hadn’t made a record yet but they were playing at a nightclub thirty minutes from my house called Frenchy’s in Hayward California. Back then myself and Rocco, on the weekends, used to go to the back of the nightclub, climb over the fence, and stay and watch Sly & The Family Stone until eight in the morning when they served free breakfast. We did this every weekend.

How old were you?

(Emilio: “Sixteen years old.”) Ok, what made you decide to call the band, firstly as the blue-eyed soul influence, The Motowns, as Lenny Williams mentioned that in my interview with him eight years ago?

Back then there were black and white bands doing soul music and The Spyders were all white. Black people used to come from all over the Bay Area and shake their heads because they couldn’t believe how soulful they were. They had this singer called Dennis Del Aqua, an incredibly soulful singer, and we were trying to emulate them. When we met Lenny Williams we were called The Motowns, as once we got into soul music my Mother (who was our manager) suggested that name, because my brother and I were originally from Detroit.

We were called The Black Orpheus before that but we didn’t like that name. This was around late 1966 early 1967 when Motown was very popular. When I hired Doc, Stephen Kupka, the Bari Sax player, who was a bit of a hippy, we wanted to get into The Filmore Auditorium. We grew our hair long and took on the hippy style and decided to change our name to something weird like Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver Messenger Service or The Grateful Dead. I was recording in a local studio and saw a list of potential weird psychedelic band Page 10 - Issue 72

names. I saw the name Tower Of Power, which seemed to describe our sound, and that’s how we chose and changed the name.

How did you manage to land the deal with your ‘East Bay Grease’ album on an independent label?

Bill Graham opened The Filmore East in New York as well as having the west coast venue and he became an entrepreneur, deciding to own his own record company. All the record companies were approaching him because he had access to all these bands. Bill’s labels, Filmore Records distributed by Columbia Records and San Francisco Records, the latter who we eventually signed with, was distributed by Atlantic. We, at the time, were working in nightclubs and were underage and eventually got busted by the alcohol and beverage control.

They sent a notice out to club owners promising that their license would be revoked if we were hired so we had no gigs; only an audition at the end of the year. We submitted a tape of one of our live sets to David Rubinson and were just waiting for our audition. At the audition we were the last band with four bands playing before us. They were all of a two guitar, bass and drums formula and we walked out with this big horn section. The crowd was tired and started walking out the door and we started with this James Brown cut called ‘Open The Door’ as an instrumental. Then everybody stopped and turned around and took notice of our sound and I noticed one head in particular peek out of the doorway and it was Bill Graham.

Now he liked horns and rhythm and after the audition we went to see him and he paid us a couple of hundred bucks, which was a bonus as we thought we were playing for free.

I went back to spend the holidays with my folks in Detroit and within a few days Doc called and said, “You gotta come back” because Bill Graham wanted to sign us. I was surprised because bands more famous than us were trying to get signed but there was something about us they liked. I think David Rubinson and Bill Graham really liked soul music.

How was it alternating between the two very contrasting lead vocalists Rufus Miller and Rick Stevens?

We needed a lead singer that was a good front man. The Spyders had this six foot three inch chick named Trudy Johnson so, at first, we wanted a girl. We started by auditioning a girl named Maxine Howard who visited us at an after hours club we worked at. She brought Lenny Williams with her and tried to convince me to use him but I wanted a female singer. Then we saw Rufus Miller with a band called The Magnificent 7

who played in Hayward at a club called Soul City, which later told him we were going with Rick. became our rehearsal home. He had something different and unique with his gravely voice, kind of like a Tasmanian Devil. Although Rick was a good singer he had his demons also which We hired him but he had some demons. He had had some ultimately paved the way for Lenny Williams to become the dealings with The Black Panthers and he would just up and groups lead singer.

Lenny had a record deal with Fantasy leave with no explanations. We wouldn’t Records and also with Atlantic. I had see him for two or three months and we’d met him previously as I said with be thinking of getting a replacement Maxine but then I didn’t see him again singer, but then he would return saying till we met at Larry Graham’s house a that The Black Panthers had been after But the way he’d couple of years later. Larry needed him. He started getting into cocaine and written it he must have some horns and we came over to lay because he sang so gruffly, he got nodes said ‘It Really Doesn’t some horns down over these wonderful on his throat and ended up having to get Matter’ about sixty songs like ‘Hair’ and ‘People’, that later a throat operation. We knew a soulful thousand times. became Graham Central Station’s first band called Stuff who had a lead singer album. This guy with Larry sang really named Rick Stevens and a guy named soulful and when we were on a break he Willy Fulton, who later became our came up to me and he said, “You don’t guitar player. They also had a really remember me do you?” I said no and good organ player, Wayne Lawson, and we were trying to get him to join our band also. When he said “I’m Lenny Williams I met you with Maxine Howard Rufus had his operation we got Rick to come and fill in and in Fremont”. I looked at him and then he lifted up his hair, he he was used to doing five sets a night, which was what we was wearing a Sly Stone wig, and then I recognised him. I told were used to doing at that time. Rick was doing great whilst him he sounded great and he returned the compliment saying Rufus, who was supposed he loved the horns. We became good friends and started to be recuperating, started writing together and he was the most soulful singer I knew. smoking and doing cocaine Lenny was influencing me so much that I could hear him in my and so he wasn’t healing mind when I was writing songs. Once Rick Stevens realised he properly. We kept Rick on and was the main vocalist, since Rufus had been fired, he started this was happening around going back to his old ways, including heroin. That’s why the the time we were getting band he was in was called ‘Stuff’ because it was a nickname signed by Bill Graham. for heroin back then, and all of the guys in that band were We went into the studio to on heroin. Rick was doing his best to stay clean whilst he was record ‘East Bay Grease’ and filling in for Rufus, because he wanted the gig in our band, fired Rufus because he was but once he got the confirmation he started back with his old making a lot of demands habits, and then his ego started getting bigger and he got about money. However when an attitude. On three occasions we David Rubinson tried to asked Lenny Williams to join the Emilio record Rick’s voice the only band but, because he knew us all song he sounded good on was as friends, he didn’t want to come ‘Sparkling In The Sand’, because he hadn’t learnt to sing the between us. I had written ‘So Very gravely voiced songs like Rufus did. So David Rubinson made Hard To Go’ and when I wrote it us get Rufus back, who recorded the songs, and the album I had Lenny’s voice in my mind became a local hit and we really started doing good. Then because I was hearing the way he Rufus really became a problem and his ego got out of control sang in my head all the time. Rick and he started demanding more money. By this time Rick was being stubborn, wanting all Stevens had learned to sing those gravely tunes and really the instruments and overdubs to be ‘bring it’ at the live shows. One night Rufus made a demand done before he came in to record. The late for more money and I explained to him that we are a band He became obstinate and was Rick Stevens and we all get the same money. I told him I hoped to see him completely strung out so I asked at the gig, but if I didn’t we’d use Rick. That night I asked Rick Lenny for the last time, as we’d decided that Rick was out to really step up and perform at his best and he did. Rufus of the band. Lenny said he asked his wife about joining the rang a couple of days later asking to ‘bury the hatchet’ but I band and he took the gig. He came, we rehearsed, and the thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

first gig we did was at Winterland for Bill Graham with Curtis Mayfield and The Bar Kays. (Fitzroy: “That is what Lenny said to me in our interview.”)

So Lenny joined on the Tower Of Power album Lenny’s introduction is clearly noted with a change of musical direction for the band. I love ‘So Very Hard To Go’ because it really pulls on my heartstrings. Especially when it was used in the Brazilian gangster flick ‘City Of G o d s ’.

Lenny said he sung that song with everything he had, so my question is did you realise that you had a hit?

As I said, I had written the tune with Lenny in mind. When I wrote that song I had his famous “Ooh’s” in my head. By the time Rick crashed and burned, and I’d hired Lenny, we had already recorded that album twice. Before I fired Rick we’d fired Willie Fulton and Skip Mesquite and we had already recorded half the album with them on it. We went back in and re-recorded it all again, so it was a long process.

We had brought in Lenny Picket and Bruce Conte and then added Lenny Williams. Lenny didn’t know all of the songs and the record company wanted the album out quickly so by recording and releasing ‘So Very Hard To Go’ as a single that would buy us some time to finish the other songs and do live shows to get us back on track. I knew the night I wrote that song it was going to be a hit. I even told my manager who laughed at first until he heard it and had to agree.

The horn section of Tower Of Power were recruited to perform on various artists recordings like Elton John, Harvey Mason, Angela Bofill and Aerosmith and appeared on a funky soul track by Elkie Brook ‘The Rising Cost Of Love’. So how do you recall being asked to do all those projects?

It was great and we kind of stumbled into it.

We got a call from a guy called Nick Gravenites who was a blues singer and harmonica player in Big Brother and later Electric Flag. One night Nick called us in the middle of the night and asked us to play horns on a song called ‘Funky Jim’. So we went over and put some horn parts on the track and before we left he gave us some money unexpectedly, as we thought we were just going for a jam session. A couple of months later we got a call from Carlos Santana who we’d done a bit of touring with. He wanted us to put some horns on a song called ‘Everybody’s Everything’ which was really easy to put horns to. They mixed it and put it out in a week and it was on the radio with people talking about it nationwide asking who that horn section was. Once the word got out that it was Page 12 - Issue 72

Tower Of Power Horns we started getting calls from rock stars wanting our flavour on their tracks. Eventually we got a call from Elton John whilst doing his ‘Caribou’ album, which was recorded at James William Guercio’s studio Caribou Ranch in Colorado. Gus Dudgeon was Elton’s producer doing the overdubs in Los Angeles and gave us three days of recording sessions to do. Elton wasn’t in the studio with us but when he heard the horns he loved it and later gave us a very flattering accolade during an interview in the UK’s Cream Magazine. We took Elton’s quote and made a Tower Of Power Horns booklet with a resume of each horn player and some nice pictures and info on artists we’d recorded with. We sent that out to all the recording community, and famous artists and producers we knew of, and it turned into a whole other side career for the horns. People were getting to know Tower Of Power horns even more than Tower Of Power, because so many people buy these famous artist’s records, and we were starting to become recognised in the industry. It became a great sideline for us but our main thing has always been Tower Of Power the band.

I’m not sure if you realise that I was the DJ for the sell out gig you did at KOKO in Camden two years back. (Emilio: “Oh, ok.”)

I noticed whilst playing my funk set that the audience coming in was a quite young, white one. Some looking like they just came out of college or university. They knew every lyric of every song and what compounded the night was the emphatic sound of Tower Of Power. I can’t find the words to describe the whole dynamics of the band it was very powerful. What memories do you have of the gig and when you saw that audience packed upstairs to the rafters and downstairs?

It was great and felt great but I wasn’t surprised.

England for us has been a thorn in our side for years because all we ever play is London. We played a few more cities in 1974 when were on the Warner Brothers Music show but after the mid 80’s we were only able to get gigs in London alone. They’re always packed and they love us so it’s baffling. In the 1990’s we noticed that, in Europe and in the USA, young people had heard about us and were showing up. A lot of it comes from music magazines talking about us as ‘cream of the crop’ musicians and famous musicians talking about us as well. Also the advent of the Internet gave Tower Of Power fans the ability to get in touch with each other world wide in chat rooms from Norway, Finland and Australia.

It’s surprising to me that no other UK cities hire us. However this time with the tour in October we are playing four cities for the first time ever. I believe we will be packed out on all those dates and hope I’m not wrong. When we used to do the Astoria to a packed crowd, I would walk down the street to get some fish and chips after the show and guys would be telling

me that they had travelled from other towns and cities in the UK to see us and wanted to know why we didn’t do gigs in those areas.

Well I have put Adrian Gibson in touch with the Soul Train crew who has a massive base in Bristol to collaborate and promote that particular date. Were you aware of how popular your 1997 cut ‘It Really Doesn’t Matter’ was? It’s an anthem at a long running soul weekender called Caister in the UK. (Emilio: “What’s a soul weekender?”) Think of a club night that is extended for a whole weekend from Friday during the day to the Sunday Night/Monday morning with different rooms of music throughout that duration. (Emilio: “and ‘It Really Doesn’t Matter’ is an anthem there?”) Yes. (Emilio laughs. “Really?”)

It’s a soul scene event outside of London based in Great Yarmouth.

It’s been running for nearly 40 years. As a two-step kind of groove on that circuit which I’ve played on over the years, when that song comes on they go mad.

(Emilio laughs in amazement) I’ll tell you a funny story about that song. I live in Phoenix, AZ in the USA and I did an interview on a local soul station. A Mexican guy called Tony Flores interviewed me and he was a nice guy. He told me that during his high school days he was offered a gig with Dyke

& The Blazers who, at that time, were stranded in Phoenix and that’s when they wrote the song ‘Funky Broadway’. They had asked him to go on the road, but he was too young, and this revelation started a knowledgeable conversation of our mutual love for soul music. After that interview he contacted me and said he’d written some songs and could he send them to me. I said sure and when I got them one of the songs that was very good was ‘It Really Doesn’t Matter’. But the way he’d written it he must have said ‘It Really Doesn’t Matter’ about sixty thousand times. Still there was something about the tune that he wrote that was mesmerising. I called him up and told him that ‘It Really Doesn’t Matter’ needs a re-write and suggested that he and I get together to do that. I edited certain bits out and re-wrote the story line. We recorded it as a demo and I sent it in not thinking much would happen but the record executive at Epic, Michael Caplan, said “I like this tune.” At the time a bunch of guys in the band were trying to get their songs on the album and sort of got upset because that song got picked. There was a benevolence about the tune because initially it wasn’t considered special but these kind of things happen and especially in Europe. Someone else told me a similar thing about how popular that song was. It was kind of a surprise hearing that.

Thanks Emilio

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

ORS • IV

A Soul Galore Weekender Special Supplement

August 2017 October 2017

Kiki Dee

y speaks with Fitzro Les Csonge & Ann Taylor give us an insight into their world of “Northern Soul” from their early

beginnings as teenagers in the early 70’s growing up in Blackpool and Bacup Lancashire right up tohave their thought forthcoming Galore would that aSoul naive, youngWeekender but very on the South Coast of England this October 13th-15th 2017 at the Leas Cliff Hall Folkestone.

Who gifted northern English Caucasian blue eyed soul artist, would make history on the most popular black Les owned blackCsonge label, Motown Records. Well Pauline Matthews (Who you ask?) aka Kiki Dee was already an established starwould making popular “I guess you have to sayswinging I was the,sixties now musicstereotyped, way before description many discovered gift,Northern singing of anher early ‘Don’tSouler, Go Breaking My Heart’class withfrom the ‘Rocket Man’ white, working Lancashire.

Myof mother Elton John around a decade later. Ahead her much in a talked about revisit of that Northern worked Soul catalogue biscuit factory at Soul Galour’s weekender Octoberand 13th-15th in my dad Kent, Kiki shares how her ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’ (RIP) was a HGV ethos that has kept her on the ‘Magic Carpet driver”Ride’ and singing with her love of music.

At age 15 I got a job working on the hot dog and You were born March 6th 1947, which make youburger a Pisces.stall thesocar Growing up your older brother was an Elvisinfan, thatpark the Mecca must have been part of your introduction under into music.

How didThe you70’s findSoul your Scene own musical had ainfluences lot moreand to it than interest just as a underground teenager before you started recording?

Northern, we had Soul and TSOP in the charts that local pubs like The

be playing we would I did a Crown TV showwould in Bradford recentlybefore called ‘Back to where the Blackpool Casino In Timehead For Tea’ a family goes backat in the time.Pleasure many smaller clubs Barbarellas In this Beach, case it was to the 1950’s.

Theylike redecorate their homes to certain eras. I took my brother and sister along with me as they were a bit older than me through that decade. My brother was a teenager in the late 1950s and he had a lot of vinyl of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and Cliff Richard. We had a warm family home which had an old fashioned radiogram, an all in one big monstrosity in the corner but it was brilliant watching the old vinyl drop down. On early TV I watched many UK singers plus I liked American voices on the radio such as Brenda Lee, I could relate to her earthy voice. She was very versatile

Northern Soul Survivor

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in Blackpool, it was crazy busy. At closing time the queues would be 5 deep, full of wide eyed youngsters clutching vinyl records, buzzing like bees around the van.

Earlier at 12 midnight many were jumping on a coach to go to this place called Wigan.

I did not understand why at the time but I guess, not surprisingly, it was not too long before I was joining them on the trip”

Les Blackpool Mecca 70’s

and others would be playing a great mixture of both Northern & Motown.

Before the legendary Saturday Nights at the Mecca with Colin Curtis & Ian levine I used to go to the Sunday Sessions in the Highland room, it was open to age 16+ and was like a stepping stone to the main event for me.

I can remember vividly my very first visit to Wigan Casino (pictured), the hairs stood up on the back of my neck just as they are now as I recollect it and when I hear a certain tune, the heat as you went through the doors and pure energy and sense of belonging was addictive, the whole room was clapping in unison to then breaking now legendary tunes of Richard Searling, Russ Winstanley, Kev Roberts and many more great DJs.

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Northern Soul Survivors N ER SO

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

and had a country music sound. I was singing the hits of the day from quite a young age, more seriously I’d say from the age of 10 which would have been around 1957. So my early influences were definitely the American rock and rollers.

How did the black American R&B sounds start to influence you?

I think obviously it was always there within the music I picked up and listened to as a child. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that I started to go down to London. I had a record deal with Fontana Records, and was invited to appear on the ‘Ready Steady Go’ TV program. There were many great artists from the USA appearing on the show like Ben E King, who I met.

Later on with Motown I got more involved with soul music and those kind of sounding voices, which was in the latter part of the 60s. As a young teenager I had started to notice voices like Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke, who were the roots of it all for me really.

You had a record deal with Fontana circa 1963 and were also doing backing vocals for Dusty Springfield.

Yeah I did. In fact I went to London with my Dad and got signed. I did a Brenda Lee song called ‘Speak To Me Pretty’ as my audition.

Funnily enough I found the old acetate in my sister’s loft the other day. The record company put me in touch with a manager called Victor Billings who signed Dusty just after I was signed. I absolutely adored Dusty Springfield and always loved her voice and musicality. Dusty had diverse influences in the 1960s. She was recording the European type ballads that were around but she was also into black American music, whilst she was developing. Dusty was in her early 20s and was 7 years older than me. I sung backing vocals for a lot of people like Robert Plant who told me a couple of years ago I sung a track for him in 1965. I did Love Affair’s ‘Everlasting Love’ but mostly it was for Dusty because we were in the same stable.

In my research I recently listened to a lot of that material you did from the 1960s. Even though I was born in 1964 I was unaware of your Northern Soul history because I was too young to be a connoisseur of that era. Wasn’t your powerful delivery cover of Tami Lynne’s ‘Why Don’t I Run Away From You’ a big hit on Radio Caroline?

Page 16 - Issue 72

Yes, as that was one of the only outlets for new recording artists that we had then. What’s fascinating is that I could have landed with a different label and been given different material. When you’re that young, as I was then, being just 16, you’re very malleable and with all those influences that are coming at you and you just go with it. I sometimes envy people who have specific musical roots. I’ve always been a bit of everything and you can tell that from the music that I’ve done in my life. Although my voice is quite specific in style and delivery my material and my musical taste is quite eclectic. (Kiki laughs) I didn’t know it then, but understand it now, that I’ve been ingrained in music from birth. Coming from my cultural background, being a descendent of the African Diaspora, I worked out something in my late teens. One of the reasons why I like a multitude of music, is because I can hear the blackness in the music, because all music essentially comes from black music whether it’s rock or jazz.

I totally agree with you and I get that. That’s what I meant earlier when you asked me about getting into black R&B music. It was always in there. Elvis was completely immersed in black music and all those great voices black or white from the 1950s all came from black music. When I did that TV show I mentioned earlier I did some research and I know Alan Freed coined the phrase rock & roll but there is a track that Ella Fitzgerald did in 1927 where the term rock & roll is in the lyric. It’s quite amazing, so it all comes from black music way back.

How did you change your name from Pauline Matthews to Kiki Dee? Mitch Murray wrote my first single called ‘Early Night’ at a time when I was only 16 and very susceptible. Imagine my Dad and I driving to London from Yorkshire at a time when The Beatles and the Stones, Twiggy and the swinging sixties were happening. Bradford felt like another planet. The label said they wanted to make my name a bit cuter and shorter and came up with ‘Kinky Dee’. I remember saying to my Dad that I wanted to be singing in 5 years time and didn’t want to be called ‘Kinky’. I said it’s not classy enough. (Fitzroy: “I would have thought that your father would strongly object to his daughter being called Kinky!”) (Kiki laughs.) Exactly. My Dad was a salt of the earth Yorkshireman and I did actually have a bit of an identity crisis being called Kiki. I’d get into my London persona, drinking wine with the odd meal and mixing with London people, and then I’d go home and get asked “What kind of name is Kiki?” So it took quite a while for my identities to merge.

Apart from Dusty there were other singers making an impact at

the time, like Lulu, but quite a few people have documented that you had a very unique voice. They also state that it took a while for you to be recognised. A song on the Northern Soul scene that seems to be regarded as the holy grail Kiki Dee track, is ‘Magic Carpet Ride.’

(Kiki laughs) I know, it’s just one of the songs I recorded on Fontana. Who would have thought that, about that particular song? You know, I had a bit of an attachment at the time, wishing I could get a hit record like Sandy Shaw, Dusty Springfield and Lulu. The irony of being young and thinking that it’s all got to happen yesterday, and feeling that you haven’t got time to waste, so to speak. It’s interesting that I’m doing this weekender in October and I have no attachment, apart from the outcome being that I do a good job and have a great time. Do you know what I mean, because I haven’t sung these songs for a long time?

(Fitzroy: “Yes. I understand.”) I rather like that aspect of it. At one time I was attached to the fact that I wasn’t becoming a big star and thinking that once you’d made it is when the work stops. But actually it’s when it all starts.

I’m kind of curious as to how The Motown album happened?

It’s the same as what happened with Fontana. If I ever write a book it will be called ‘Three Phone Calls’ because there are three specific ones that changed my life. I received a call asking if I’d like to record in Detroit. I got a call from Fontana asking if I wanted to audition and I also got a call from Elton John’s manager. It’s bizarre but I got a call from a guy called Barney Ales in Detroit. Motown, in the late 1960s, was shifting as a company. A lot of white people were becoming the corporate side of it. I found out later that Barney, who was quite a big bloke, was running things. I never met Berry Gordy by the way. Barney was the guy who would go to the clubs to make sure artists got their money, so he was a bit of a tough guy. He became high up in the company on the side that I was involved with. Somebody’s son within Motown suggested me as they were looking for an artist from the UK and I was invited over there for three months.

There wasn’t much preparation for me when I got there but it was quite an extraordinary thing and I got to record at the original recording studio, which is now a museum. I recorded four original cuts, and the rest were other people’s backing tracks. I remember singing ‘I Can’t Give Back The Love I Feel For You’ by Syreeta Wright. It was in a slightly high key for me and I remember trying to hit the note as the record began to fade. I’m a perfectionist so I asked the engineer “I don’t

like that fade, could you fade it a bit more quickly?” (Kiki laughs as she recalls that.) A lot of the recording was of other people’s backing tracks.

I listened to the material from there and I recognised songs like ‘I Second that Emotion’ and ‘For Once In My Life’ by Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder respectively. The arrangements were different and I found them very interesting.

I’m quite proud of that album. I can tell you what they are, ‘The Day Will Come Between Sunday And Monday’ which has a great hook and concept lyrically. The really slowed down ‘For Once In My Life’, I liked the originality of that. There was also Johnny Raven and another track that was cut for me. I’ve always had a soft spot for ‘The Day Will Come Between Sunday And Monday’ because it’s very clever lyrically. (Fitzroy: “Pam Sawyer who went on to write for Diana Ross wrote that.”) She was nice and I think she was English and white if that means anything.

I noticed that the American album cover was different with the English flags compared to the English one? (Kiki: “I guess they were promoting the English invasion and making sure that people knew I was English.”) What’s interesting is the up roar in the 1960s when Motown records put white faces on their front covers when they were selling music outside of the USA. However, there’s like a reversal with you, because on the front cover of the USA version you look like your skin has been darkened (Kiki bursts out laughing.) or am I imagining it?

I think they made my waist thinner, not that I had a big waist actually. It’s quite interesting. There is a sense that the album was done quite quickly and randomly. It wasn’t like one of those situations where I lived there and Martha Reeves might be fighting with Diana Ross to get the hit song. I was only there for 12 weeks and I got to work with Frank Wilson, which was really lovely. I went to do a project and came back thinking, “Well that was interesting, is there some air brushing going on?” So it must have been, absolutely on that picture, and it was quite early for airbrushing. I did look very dark skinned because actually I’m very fair skinned. So it’s quite something that Motown reached out and took me at face value. Thinking back the race riots of 1968 that happened in America, was only two years prior to me going to record in Detroit.

Motown did later recruit more white artists, in 1976 they signed Teena Marie. Was it was a one deal thing or where you hoping for a second album? thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

The atmosphere around it was that I came back and not a great deal happened. Motown traditionally was a singles label and that changed when Marvin and Stevie started doing those great album concepts. Maybe if I’d been from Detroit and lived there who knows? I’m proud of what I did though and don’t think I could have done a better job. It’s a bit of luck having a hit song but Tamla Motown was a great life experience and a great story for me.

voices, like they were in the shower (Kiki: “How fabulous!”)

Even the foreign bar staff (Kiki laughs.) sang the lyrics and I’m sure they were pouring extra measures whilst they were serving people. I looked at the promoter and smiled confidently and they reluctantly had to smile and admit that, as risky as it was, I pleased the audience. (Kiki: “Well, well done you because sometimes you’ve got to open your mind a little bit. I think that’s brilliant and so funny.” (Kiki burst out laughing again.)

On that album they gave you more presence as the vocalist.

When you listen to other Motown albums they have more backing vocals behind them. (Kiki: “Yes.”). I noticed that’s what was missing from yours. Regardless it’s still a good album and you made history.

When I knew I was speaking with you I had to share that story.

Nice way to end the interview thanks Kiki it’s been fun.

Thanks very much Fitzroy, see you on the night.

The fact that they asked me to go over there as a Northern Girl who had a bit of soul is what I’m proud of. Not the peripheral stuff about not having a hit song or whether it was in the right key. It’s all about the right singer with the right song.

It’s like ‘Walk On By’ by Dionne Warwick, the hit version, or ‘Stay With Me’ by Lorraine Ellison. It’s the marriage, it’s a bit like the actor and actress and it works. When the song meets the singer it’s a match made in heaven. I’m dead proud of what I did.

Being really honest I did like the album and will try and get it even if it’s just on CD. (Kiki: “Thank you.”)

Your song ‘Small Town’ on You Tube is you singing in a club, what film was that?

It was called ‘Dateline Diamonds’ and it was a B movie with Kenneth Cope from Randall & Hopkirk. (Fitzroy: “I used to love that program.”) I was a singer in the film and my manager was smuggling diamonds into a pirate radio ship. The Small Faces were in it. It was quite a cool film.

I’ve got a story to tell you. I do a few soul holidays where people from the UK fly over in numbers to enjoy a week of sun, sea and soul music. I was Dj-ing at one of these a few years back. There was probably about 200 plus people attending. Every DJ beforehand had done a great set before it was my turn. The audience were a mixed one but more connoisseurs of non-commercial soul music. I had this brave epiphany moment and played ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’. The promoter was literally a few feet away from me. They shot me the look of death (Kiki: “Really?”). Yes, however everyone started singing at the top of their Page 18 - Issue 72

Thank you to Lee Nobel for sorting the interview. Image: Pete Mitchell of The Kiki Dee Archive

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2000 Black History Now that the Incognito ‘Summer’s Ended’ it’s ‘Back To School’ again like Bunny Wailer, so today, the soul survivors class of 2017, let’s have a Gil Scott Heron ‘Black History’ lesson about my spiritual wife. We’ve been married for many years and her name is MUSIC. My approach to this piece of homework was inspired upon receiving a gift in the post from Larry Mizell, professor of astronomical sorts in music production featured in the last SSM issue 71. In short he loved the article and requested 50 copies to be sent to him. He then sent to me with a personal inscription a music sheet score of Johnny Hammond’s Fantasy classic ‘Los Conquistadores Chocolates’. It rendered me speechless for a few moments, then a light bulb went off in my head, as it was the final missing piece of the puzzle, I was trying to find for this article. Both Johnny Hammond’s ‘Los Conquistadores Chocolates’ and ‘Donald Byrd’s ‘Lansanas Priestess’ are songs that many of you reading this, as jazz funk and soul survivor fans, have a passion for. Although they are ‘jazzfunktastic’ instrumentals, they have a deep black consciousness meaning and history within the concept of what you hear. Indeed Gil Scott Heron’s afore mentioned ‘Black History (The World)’ is completely graphic in exposing the old school soap powder Daz, Ariel or Radiant ‘white wash’ of indoctrinated western world “His story’.

There are many other examples of black conscious ‘soulcial’ commentary which is embraced and shown in varying degrees of empathy, from the sonically affected human race. So if we identify with the struggles of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’, James Brown’s ‘Say It Loud I’m Black And I’m Proud’, Aretha Franklin’s or Nina Simone’s versions of ‘Young Gifted And Black’, why are there still in 2017, some amongst us who proclaim they love the music, but do not respect the people and culture it comes from? We know who many of the now deceased but recognised black activists whose mission was to ‘Fight The Power’ like Public Enemy were. Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali and recently Dick Gregory all of whom gave their life selflessly and some died for that cause.

There is currently a white activist championing the African Diaspora dilemma in the USA. Her name is Jane Elliot and she is white AmeriKKKa’s worst nightmare, speaking eloquently about Page 20 - Issue 72

the ‘white privilege’ exercised by many, not just in the USA but universally. I’ve seen her challenge Caucasian participants at her seminars at college campuses with this following statement.

“Every white person in this room, if you’d like to be treated the way we have treated black citizens, for the last 2-300 years, please stand up.” Nobody stood and you could have heard a feather fall. She repeats “You couldn’t have understood the question.” and she repeated the statement. Still no one stood.

Jane Elliot said to them “You know what you’ve just admitted?

You know it’s happening, you know it’s wrong and you know you don’t want it to happen to you. So why are you allowing it to happen to other people and denying that it’s happening?” I sense some shuffling in the classroom right now. Before like Isaac Hayes ‘I Stand Accused’ of inciting racial division and you ask “What has that got to do with the price of bread, that’s in the USA, not here in Engeeerlund?” It’s right on our soul surviving UK doorsteps…

Believe!!

With the advent of ‘Farcebook’, Brexit and recent terrorist attacks it’s become a climate for many and plenty who we all interact with to spout their closeted and bigoted rhetoric. There are amongst us DJ’s promoters, radio stations, clubs, events, venues and music fans those who claim to be ‘In love with music’ like the Chic classic, but blatantly and subliminally exercise, a quota limit of how many black people participate in the ventures. On so many levels in the UK we have areas of black music championed

by Caucasians recognised and respected as aficionados, as though the indigenous black ones do not exist, or are not deemed worthy of representing what comes first and foremost from their culture.

‘Why?’ like Carly Simon is it relevant and being mentioned now?

It’s because it’s Black History month in the UK, but the issue is an ongoing Buzz Lightyear “To infinity and beyond” everyday reality.

I live, eat and breathe the Sounds Of Universal Love (SOUL) daily.

Am I proud to be a descendent of the African dancing Masai warriors, and our rich cultural history and contribution to the world? AbSOULutely a resounding YES, but let’s not get things twisted and to be clear, as someone born of the African Diaspora experience, I’m a humanitarian, human meaning “of colour and of spirit” (Oxford/Cambridge dictionary or Thesaurus - check it out).

So before the old cliché, defensive statement “I’m not racist I have black friends…” comes out of the mouths of those not wanting to know the truth, I and many of us Curtis Mayfield’s ‘We That Are Darker Than Blue’ soul survivors, analyse every other option, before we ask ourselves, when faced with certain hurdles and not shoulder chips, the Syl Johnson classic, ‘Is It Because I’m Black?’ I have tattooed on my right forearm the word ‘Salongo’ the title of a prized possessed Ramsey Lewis album. It’s an expression from Zaire meaning “We come together to create something beautiful out of love.” However sadly in these recent Roberta Flack ‘Trying Times’ there is plenty of evidence of hypocrisy and bigotry that is, to say the least, quite disturbing. I have seen an email where a highly regarded authority of black music, had an outburst clearly exercising their ‘white privilege’, exploiting black music to their advantage. In eleven years of running The Soul Survivors Magazine initially as a Stevie Wonder ‘’Ebony & Ivory’ black and white person partnership, we have experienced and documented the ‘white privilege’ first hand, up close and personal. That privilege has been highlighted via commentary, speaking with black, white, Asian and Greek interviewees. For example, on one occasion the Soul Survivors Magazine was asked “When are you going to put a white face on the front cover?”. A record plugger back in 1979 (and one of colour) had a dub plate of the Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ frisbied at him, splitting his eye open with blood gushing out, and was cussed by a Caucasian DJ, “Don’t you ever bring me this shit again, with some n**ger rapping over ‘Good Times’ ”. This still is happening today, make no mistake. n ve tio ha ec at to n d on ds rs se g c ien ivo a n fr rv e i Pl inu ur Su ine l o t n th ou az co wi e S ag M h T

One very established Caucasian artist in recent years (to be clear not in support of what is about to be shared) and without any prompting shared their awareness of the ‘white privilege’. Even with them being so honest, out of respect, we were unable to quote them in print, in fear of the possible negative reprisals to their career. Another Caucasian DJ and radio station owner stated again, of their own accord, that there were raised eyebrows, when they teamed up with a black promoter, joining forces to mix their predominantly black and white crowds together. Collectively they provide what is now considered a successful twice a year weekend event. I’m guessing that some reading this want to leave or have already left the classroom. It’s ok, I get it, but for the doubters I suggest maybe that you “Take a Look At Yourself… before you point that finger at me.” It’s an Eddie Russ classic. Remember Jane Elliot is Caucasian and tells it straight.

My closing statement is this… It would be nice to see less hate and ‘Spread Love’ more like Al Hudson And The Soul Partners for those who claim to love my lady, my spiritual wife Music.

Respect her and Her story (History). In other words don’t hate, just appreciate!! I sincerely hope some have you have learned something positive. Class dismissed.

Peace Fitzroy

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Record Reviews In this issue 72’s selection of record reviews there are five varied compilations, 2 singles, 2 solo albums and an EP. Amongst those is an Acid Jazz anthology a DJ remix discography and a jazz juice mixture from BBE, this season’s Expansion delivery and two contrasting jazz and southern blues soul.

It may be the cold season but these will warm your heart.

Joey Negro Sean P Disco Spectrum BBE In the year of Prince’s 1999, two music nerds Sean P and Dave Lee started a series of Disco Spectrum compilations that trail blazed the cause for raiders of the lost disco archives on BBE, as what Dez Parkes did with the RCA Rare albums. I had already acquired many of the originals over the years, but complete with comprehensive sleeve notes, these comps were exceeding good tasting musical biscuits like Mr Kipling’s legendary Bakewell Tarts. Amongst the 21 tracks chosen there are some fairly readily available standard cuts, like ‘Spread Love’, ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’, ‘I Want You For Myself’, ‘Could Heaven Ever Be Like This’ and ‘Get Another Love’. However the more expensive and obscurer individuals like the Rare Essence, ‘Let Me Down Easy’ 45, Alfredo De La Fest ‘Hot To Trot’, Cloud One ‘Don’t Let This Rainbow Pass You By’ and my personal gem Jo. Boyer ‘Isabelle & The Rain’, add an equilibrium value to the album concept. Nice mixture as a best of on this double CD.

Can You Feel The Force The John Luongo Mixes Groove Line Records.

You may already have some of these mixes but not really acknowledged the remixer, a pioneering John Luongo. This double CD with a 24-page booklet catalogues 21 tracks over 4 years from 1978-1982. There are some familiar artists who’ve had John Luongo’s midas touch including The Jacksons, ‘Blame It On The Boogie’, The Real Thing ‘Can You feel The Force?’ Patti Labelle’ Music Is My Life’, Johnny Mathis ‘Gone Gone Gone’ and Melba Moore ‘You Stepped Into My Life’. John’s mixes are very percussive and give new dimensions quite noticeably in particular to the Jackson’s superb remix of ‘Shake Your Body Down’. One’s to listen to are the less popular Stanley Clarke ‘Just A Feeling’, Southern Exposure ‘On Our Way’ and Sarah Dash’s ‘(Come And Take This) Candy From Your Baby’ Although it’s a little menage of disco rock Santana’s ‘One Chain’ is interesting. From his own publishing and CBS subsidiary label Pavillion subsidiary label check out The Quick ‘Zulu’ and Cerrone’s electro constructed ‘Back Track’. Certainly worth a journey into the disco galaxy!!

Leroy Hutson Anthology 1972-1984 Acid Jazz I’m sure if you had forecast to a younger entrepreneuring Eddie Piller, that upon discovering Leroy Hutson 30 years ago, that it would unfold in him signing Mr Huston to his baby Acid Jazz Records. Eddie has openly declared he bases his soulful music productions on the Hutson sound and with Dean Rudland had a painstaking task of compiling this anthology. It does cover 12 years with plenty of the Hutson favourites, ‘All Because Of You’, ‘Don’t It Make You Feel Good’, ‘Love The Feeling’, an alternative version of that came out on limited vinyl of ‘Get To This’, Lover’s Holiday’ and the social commentating ‘Time Brings On A Change’. Amongst the 19 tracks there are two surprises and previously unreleased on CD bonus cuts. Written by Leroy Hutson’s team writers J Reaves and L Reaves, ‘Positive Forces’ features Mr Hutson as an alternative to the late 70s version made popular by Tavares. This is the first Hutson Acid Jazz 7 inch vinyl release and on the flip side also included on this comp is a mid 1980s moog boogie bouncer ‘Now That I Found You’.

The first of many Hutson releases, look out for some vinyl coming to ya soon from Acid Jazz.

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Various Artists Title: Kev Beadle presents Private Collection Vol. 3 – More Independent Jazz Sounds From The 70s & 80s BBE It was 1990 when Patrick Forge, Kev Beadle and I took a ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ DJ-ing on Fridays at Cask & Glass London W.1 Kev has always been a left of the right music fan reflected in this very diverse, all aspects of the jazz dimensions concept. The only track I possessed was Roy Haynes majestic ‘Quiet Fire’, and cuts like John Thomas & LIfeforce ‘Maryke’ and Banda Metalurgia ‘Lá Em Guayaquil’ remind me of those early jazz dancing days upstairs at Camden’s Electric Ballroom circa 1982. I doff my hat to Mr Beadle for the three version excursions that very much ticked my box. Making that grade of excellence check out Lee Willhite’s 1982 predeceasing Gregory Porter’s sounding ‘World Is A Ghetto’, Finn Savery Trio’s Misturada’s, a unique take on Airto’s ‘Mixing’ and Louis Hayes Group feat Leon Thomas brilliant vocal of Freddie Hubbard’s classic ‘Little Sunflower’. Other highlights are Francisco Mora Callett’s afro cuban with steel pans brilliance ‘Samba De More’, Ronald Snijdners’ ‘Latinerra’, the esoteric Ira Sullivan’s ‘The Kingdom In You’ and experience Judd Watkin’s vocals on Webster Lewis’s ‘Do You Believe’. Recommended!!

Randy Muller Feat Carolyn Harding-Beautiful Feeling Nigel Lowis and Randy Muller Mixes This are very uplifting tracks with gospel and soulful house with a universal peace love and unity message in the music theme. Carolyn Harding still thirty years later is exercising her experienced vocal delivery on top of a very musical production. Of the five mixes I’m very partial primarily to the Philly Extended Mix, a more pounding and suited for the dance floor mix. The Soul City Mix is a much lighter weight production with a funk clavinet intro. This still danceable is softer and I suspect more radio friendly. There are 2 specific radio mixes of the Philly and NL mixes and to be honest here’s not much difference between them as they all capture the discerning ear. I think this will be on rotation across the Internet and DAB airwaves. ‘Movin’ on and ‘Changin’ times. Could Randy Muller and Nigel Lowis be the masked cape crusaders of new millennium superheros coming with a BLAFF, KAPOW and BAFF? Listen to this episode of ‘Beautiful Feelin’ and decide.

Sir Piers Long Distance and The Club (Curious) I’ve been aware of Sir Piers’s presence as a producer for a quite a few years and being honest this project has captured my attention moreso. Coming Via Soul Food PR and overseen by Lee Murthwaite’s SO-UK and Music Matter’s head honcho, the original UK music PR guru ‘The Chubbster’ Chris Rock aka Chris Rockwell Music, this is an example the forthcoming ‘Survival’ album. Both mixes of an 80s meets millennium sounding ‘Long Distance’ feat Frank McComb are catchy especially the very melodic Remode Mix. The collaboration of ‘The Club’ with a very laid back and cool sounding Renn and ‘The Return Of The Crazy One’ Digital Underground’s Shock G & Humpty Dump is a sure fired moog bass hit. Reminds me of a 1990s R&B house cut I used play entitled ‘Do It Good’ play by Numarx and I’d say it’s a Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ potentially as DJs club dance floor smash classic. Well done guys big thumbs up from me!!

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Courtney Pine-Black Notes From The Deep (Freestyle) Courtney Pine’s album title reminds me of saxophone ancestor Rahsaan Roland Kirks’ track ‘Black Mystery Has Been Revealed’. This tells me Mr Pine is exercising his cultural depth whilst transcending various trad jazz, drum and bass jazz, bossa and spiritual dimensions. His band showcase their skills featuring Robert Mitchell’s piano solo on ‘How Many More’, Alec Dankworth’s double bass exploration on ‘Rivers Of Blood’ and Chris Cobbson’s intricate guitar skills on the sultry ‘The Morning After the Night Before’. Ed Bentley’s showcases his organ skills on a piece of bossa nova brilliance, on ’In Another Time’ featuring soul don Omar. Omar collaborates three times more with Courtney on a bluesy ‘Darker Than Blue’ and two live jazz drum and bass vocal cuts. One is a Miles Davis ‘So What’ stab influenced ‘Rules’ and a fitting cover of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Butterfly’.

Courtney’s chameleon style of playing brings, moody, melancholy, relaxed, optimistic messages and emotions on this album where at times the band sound like a very polished trad jazz quartet or quintet. Nice addition to the Freestyle repertoire.

Bruce ‘Mississippi’ Johnson ‘That’s The Deal Baby’ available via https://www.brucemississippijohnson.com/thedealbaby This is a late entry to the record review literally, but upon listening I felt that the rawness, blues and soul needed to be shared. With real southern Mississippi roots Bruce ‘Mississippi’ Johnson is the real deal.

His voice has a semblance mixture of Bill Wither’s meets Gregory Porter meets a touch of Johnny Guitar Watson. You’ll hear influences of Allen Toussaint and Willie Mitchell on the title cut ‘That’s The Deal Baby’ and ‘I’m Gonna Bring Your Game Down’.

Bruce’s subject matters range from a lost exciting, misguided land, complicated love in whatever tempo takes his fancy. The Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson influences run riot through the up-tempo and funkier soul cuts ‘Can’t Shake The Blues’ and ‘Freak On Or Die’. Bruce sings with ease and he has a synergy with his live band. It’s an all round album with the familiar rock and soul shuffle groove ‘You’ve Been Working Mojo’ and the traditional monologue and splitting love between two on a virtual painted pictured ‘No Good’. It’s a great easy listening album with other well executed hidden gems like ‘I’ll Bleed’ and ‘See You Tomorrow’. Album out now!!

Soul Togetherness Expansion Ticking a few of the contemporary soul boxes, Soul Togetherness 2017 has some hidden gems amongst the lucky fifteen. For the mid tempo modern soul fans around the UK, Paul Craver’s ‘Back to You and James Day’s ‘It’s so Divine’ will suffice. Some will veer toward the two contemporary covers by Wez cover of Howard Johnson’s classic of the late Kashif composition ‘Keeping Love New’ and Thames River Soul’s latin meets four floor version of George Benson’s ‘Love X Love’. Not sure how Georgie B and Everis managed to put aside their Gunners and Spurs north London rivalry, but they managed to collaborate on a very club friendly ‘One For The Money’. Nice to hear quality voices like Leela James on an OJay’s influence grooved ‘There For You’ and Wipe The Needles’ latin Afro laced ‘Kissing You’. Keeping it 80s retro Los Charlys Orchestra featuring Omar on ‘History’, Mike City and Faith Evans on ‘The Feel Good’ and both Aeroplane feat Tawatha’s ‘Love Hold On’ and Will Sessions feat Amp Fiddlers four floor ‘Lost Without You’ steal the show for me. One for the ST fans!!

Shalamar-The Real Thing Mid tempo almost Steppers RNB groove with a bit of contemporary auto tuning for the younger generation appreciators. Carolyn and Howard share lead vocals on a production that’s a new genre for the group, only their second new recording since the disco house cut ‘Don’t Go’ with DJ Skip. It’s very catchy with an infectious rhodes stab, and at a guess something aimed deliberately at a cross over audience both young and mature. Good to hear Carolyn trade lead with Howard on a track that should get some decent radio exposure leading up to their UK tour dates in the winter of 2017.

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All reviews by Fitzroy Facey

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If Valorie had gotten her way, I believe, ‘Nights Over Egypt’, would have propelled us into one of the greatest groups of all time.”

ith Fitzroy speaks w

Shirley Jones

Shirley Jones is the only soul surviving member of the Raphael Saadiq ‘Detroit Girl’ vocalist sister act The Jones Girls.

It’s been a providential journey with a Mother who raised her three daughters to represent the Motown city and gain much respect in Philly, on Gamble & Huffs PIR label. Shirley has been on the Soul Survivors hit list and this interview is perfectly timed ahead of her ten year absence from Luxury Soul. Her pending performance on the same bill with Linda Clifford and Keni Burke, (both of whom she’s worked for or with some forty years ago) is well anticipated. With a career spanning over forty years Shirley shares some of her ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’ experiences. This is part one, part two in issue 73 for December 2017 -January 18 edition of the magazine.

Growing up in Detroit Michigan in the home of Motown and having a mother as a gospel singer, I guess it was a no brainer that you girls were destined to become singers. With Martha Reeves & the Marvelettes and Diana Ross & the Supremes’ setting the tone, how do you describe those early days being around that Motown Magic?

Being right there and growing up in Detroit, we would actually see the artists. There was an event called The Motown Review at a place called the Fox Theatre. It was always the day after Christmas and everybody would dress in their Christmas clothes and go to the Motown Review. You would see people like Martha Reeves And The Vandellas, The Temptations and Gladys Knight. Our favourite of course was Diana Ross & The Supremes which was exciting as we were really young, and we could see these people pretty much on a regular basis. Back in those days we knew where a lot of the stars lived. As my Page 26 - Issue 72

Mother’s background singers, we would go to Marvin Gaye’s porch for example and sing for him. Years later I actually met Marvin which was great. Those were amazing times back in the early 60s and it was fun being a young person growing up in that Motown era.

How young were you when you as young ladies started performing alongside acts touring with the Four Tops, as well as Little Richard, The Impressions and B.B. King?

When Motown moved to California, Dick Scott wanted to have a Motown type of situation. So my sisters and I and Enchantment (and The Dramatics a little later on) were groomed by Dick Scott on dance and vocal lessons. It was just like what Berry Gordy did with his acts. Dick had an opening in a place in Canada, which from Detroit is right across the river. It had a theatre featuring movies and then a major act

would perform, with one of us as an opening act beforehand.

We opened for Gladys Knight, The Four Tops and Little Richard, which was an amazing experience, I would have been maybe 15 at the time. We were getting interested in boys and my Mother couldn’t travel with us all the time, so she sent a guy named John Maxey to look over us. Till this day he is still alive and I saw him several years ago, he was our road manager and watched over us. That’s how we got started outside the gospel circuit and gained all that training from Dick Scott, who went on to become a multi manager for New Kids On The Block.

Can I ask you as you mentioned the gospel background, did you have much conflict with your Mum who was clearly quite religious in making secular music?

Not really. Initially she said she preferred for us to stay in the gospel world because alongside The Clarke Sisters and The Winans, we were all singing in different churches in Detroit. But with the opportunities that came about with Holland Dozier Holland and Curtis Mayfield, she started recognising our talents and harmonies. We started doing a lot of background vocals in the secular side and I guess she automatically assumed that as teenagers, we would gravitate to the secular R&B side. She was always supportive secular or gospel music. She just always stated that we should treat people the way we wanted to be treated, and to sing music that was always up lifting. I still try to do that to this day.

Those early singles from 1970 to 1974 did sound very Motown influenced on GM ‘My Own Special Way / Learn How To Love’, ‘Oh I Feel Good’ and ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart’ and ‘You’re The Only Bargain I’ve Got’ and ‘Your Love Controls Me’. Some of these came out on a subsidiary of Holland & Dozier Holland’s Invictus label.

That was a Jewish couple who had Fortune Records and I was in my mid teens. The record company had heard us doing background vocals for a Holland Dozier Holland production and invited us to their studio. A musician named Eddie Robinson who did some gospel records with my Mother had spoken with the label, so they recorded us and liked it. We had local hits with those songs.

Mentioning Holland Dozier Holland you released a few things with them and I’m assuming that’s where you met your future writing partner McKinley Jackson of The Politicians. Is that where you met him?

Yes that’s where I met him and he was very popular around the town. He was just mesmerised by our harmonies and he introduced us to Holland Dozier Holland. Eventually we ended

up working with them. In those days our Mum travelled with us everywhere in the studio and in the clubs, because legally we were still too young to be performing there, being under 21. When we first started performing we were still at high school and couldn’t sit in the bar areas, so we sat backstage or in the car before our next shows.

There are a few people I know who attributed the single entitled ‘Will You Be There’ on Paramount as a funky boogie classic from The Jones Girls.

Yes, that was amazing. I remember that song with the drummer and that they were very wordy songs. We would laugh at how many words we would have to memorise. I haven’t performed that song since those teenage years. I’ve never performed that song in the USA. There were other female vocal groups similar in having harmony voices projected as lead like The Three Degrees and The Emotions.

How was it decided on who was going to primarily sing lead?

Generally the producers, in most cases, wanted my vocals as lead I guess because it was high. At that time there was always one distinct voice in a female group who would always get the lead as with Martha Reeves out of The Vandellas, Diana Ross with the Supremes, Sheila Ferguson of The Three Degrees and Sheila Hutchinson of The Emotions. With Gamble & Huff it was always Kenny Gamble who made that decision.

We felt that we wanted people to really hear the harmonies on songs like ‘Children of The Night’ and ‘Nights Over Egypt’.

At what point did you meet with Gil Askey and Curtis Mayfield, becoming part of Curtis’s Curtom label recording ‘I Turn To You’, ‘Misteri’ (‘Mister-I’) and ‘Hey Lucinda’ b/w ‘Dr Big Smile’?

Curtis heard us and wanted us to be on his label. There was a connection with Paramount and Curtom so it was an easy segway moving labels. Before that McKinley and Holland Dozier Holland were following Motown to California. The girls thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

were still at school but I had already graduated. McKinley and I were dating at the time and I moved to California. My sisters would be flown in from Detroit to do the harmonies and recording session. Valorie and Brenda stayed with McKinley and I for a while, before they moved to California once they finished studying. I was at college at UCLA studying because I wanted to try and continue my education. One day McKinley heard through Gil Askey, who he was doing arrangements for, that Diana Ross was looking for some singers, and asked if we wanted to try out for it. We were like “Yes, oh my God we would love to!” because growing up as kids watching the Ed Sullivan show, out of all the female singers Diana Ross & the Supremes were who we admired the most. We loved they way they dressed and carried themselves and they were our idols.

That’s how we met Gil Askey when we went to Diana’s road managers house to audition, as he was the musical director.

Gil became like a Father figure to us during our tenure with Diana and his daughter was like a sister. Once Diana heard us after we sang a few songs, she asked had we ever been out of the country and we said no. She advised that Gil was going to coordinate with McKinley to get our papers sorted because she’d love us to come and perform with her in London.

What I found interesting was you writing with McKinley Jackson ‘Time Is Running Out’ for Brass Fever.

I think we only met her two or three times back at the time of the recording because the lead vocals were already laid down. We would come into Chicago to do our vocals without her being there. We enjoyed doing those songs and we were already still signed to Curtom doing our own songs.

The Jones Girls with Diana Ross

Yes we did. McKinley and I were now living together and when he wasn’t in the studio we did a lot of writing. We did ‘Handle Me Gently’ for Norman Connors and until this day I still enjoy writing songs. I try to right songs in what this music is saying to me.

I take it you’ve heard the version of ‘Runaway Love’ with just your vocals on it and without Linda’s right?

I used to go to a record shop in my lunch break where I used to work about 30 years ago. It was, a fifteen minute drive away during my lunch break. The man in the shop, obviously because he could see from what I was buying, suggested The Brass Fever album. That’s how I came across ‘Time Is Running Out’ and it’s a favourite of mine. Did you know there is another version of that song?

I have a British 12” that has ‘Runaway Love’ full vocal and ‘Runaway Love’ under the Jones Girls with ‘You Are, You Are’ on the flip.

(Shirley: “No who did it?’) It’s by an outfit called Sweet Talk from an album produced by the co founder of The Crusaders and trombonist Wayne Henderson. I’ll play it to you.

Shirley ‘Yeah that brings back memories and it brings back memories of writing that with McKinley. (Fitzroy: ’ll send it to you.”) Yeah I’d love that.

Do you remember recording ‘Le Spank’ for La Pamplemoouse?

(Shirley: “Yes.”) Ok, how did you manage to become Linda Clifford’s background vocalist for her first three albums on Curtom?

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Yes, many people mentioned our version and we’d say actually it’s Linda’s song although the Jones Girls are on background.

Now can you send me that too please? (Fitzroy” “Sure, no problem.”)

Now I read whilst you were doing all of this with Gil and Curtis you were doing a show with Diana Ross. I heard that Gamble & Huff were at the show and she suggested to them that they sign you for PIR because you were too good to just be background vocalists, how true is that?

Right after the London gig Diana told us how impressed she was with our performance over there, and we were just getting ready to do Vegas. She said “You know when I change clothes during my show I’d love you girls to pick a song, and sing to the crowd so they can see how talented you girls are.”

She said we were too good to sing background behind her or whoever and she wanted to give us that opportunity. We

were so excited and at the time Quincy Jones’ ‘If I Ever Lose This Heaven’ was popular. McKinley picked that song because it showcased our harmonies as well as each one of our individual voices. We performed that at The Shubert Theatre and Gamble & Huff were in the audience. Diana, before she left the stage said, “I’m going to change now but I want you all to pay attention to my background singers The Jones Sisters.” (as that’s what she called us). When we proceeded to sing the song the audience would just go crazy. At the time Diana hadn’t re-signed her contract with Motown, as she was not happy with them. When Gamble & Huff came backstage after the show, they asked us if we were signed to Motown and we said no. Diana didn’t want us to sign with Motown because her and Berry were not getting along. We had a couple more dates with Diana, and McKinley was kind of managing us at the time. So between McKinley getting us an attorney and Gamble & Huff wanting to sign us, we ended up with contract

for PIR. They hooked us up with their writers Dexter Wansal, and both Joe Jefferson and Charlie Simmons who had also written for Curtom. They really wanted to do an album on us so we moved straight to Philadelphia to do that first album.

Going back a bit did you meet Keni around the time that you were coming to work with Linda?

We met meet Keni Burke and Gil Askey back when we were with Curtom, and later Keni was married to Gil Askey’s daughter. We then met Keni again on the ‘Keep It Comin’ album.

The big tune off the first album is ‘This Feeling’s Killing Me’.

That’s Brenda and Valorie singing lead on that song and it was amazing but it wasn’t a big record over here in the USA. When

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we performed in the UK, we were told we have to learn that song. I used it alongside ‘Keep It Comin’ as an opening song.

Everybody was so used to me being on all of the hits, but Brenda and Valorie were specifically chosen to do that song, and it suited their voices.

‘You Gonna Make Me Find Somebody Else’ always reminds me from its beginning of Bill Wither’s ‘Lovely Day’ (Shirley: “Yeah I hear you on that.”) The tracks that I really like and not sure if you can advise how big they were in the USA were ‘You Made Me Love You’ and ‘Show Love Today’.

‘Show Love Today’ was pretty good over here and I still get royalties on that because McKinley and I wrote that song. ‘You Made Me Love You’ wasn’t big but ‘We’re A Melody’ and ‘Who Can I Run To’ were played a lot.

The next album was ‘At Peace With Woman’ with a track you mentioned earlier ‘Children of The Night’. To be honest with you it’s one of my favourite Jones Girls album. I love ‘At Peace With Woman’ it’s such a beautiful song. What’s interesting about that is that when it first came out in 1980 I was 16, and there were certain records I didn’t hear first time around. So I ended up discovering and backtracking many artists material a few years later. What surprised me was that ‘At Peace With Woman’ was a vocal version of MFSB’s instrumental ‘Old San Juan’ from ‘Mysteries Of The World’. I love ‘Dance Turned Into A Romance’.

That was huge record over here and ‘Back In The Day’ was also and ‘I Just Love The Man’ was huge.

What about my other favourite ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’?

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It was big in Europe but not here in the USA. (Fitzroy: “I’m very surprised because it’s a great track.) I agree that was written

by Cynthia Biggs and Dexter Wansal. Cynthia and I are still in touch and she advised she still get royalties for that song.

I love the front cover, as it’s so powerful.

That was Kenny Gamble with the Egyptian type clothing and he played ‘Old San Juan’ to us. He advised he was going to write some lyrics to that song as he came up with that entire concept. He said he kept hearing those lyrics in his head about peace between man and woman. I loved the way Gamble & Huff wrote social conscious lyrics, so when he asked us if we’d do it we said absolutely. I just did ‘Essence’ with Mary J Blige and she named me the four songs that were her favourites, ‘Nights Over Egypt’, ‘Children Of The Night’, ‘At Peace With Woman’ and ‘You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else’. She said that we were one of her favourite acts growing up. That was my first time meeting her when we both performed at Essence last July. It was so humbling and I just can’t even explain how much, with Mary J, Faith, Lalah Hathaway and all these girls that are doing well, saying we were such a positive influence growing up. It made me feel so good and I wish that both of my sisters were here to hear this now. That just one of the things that keeps me going, knowing that we influenced these powerful ladies from our singing to the way we carried ourselves and how we dressed. Makes me think that we did something right.

I believe that ‘At Peace With Woman’ concept may have inspired Dexter and Cynthia to write ‘Nights Over Egypt’. Let’s talk about the ‘Get As Much As You Can’ album. I know you wrote ‘ASAP’ with McKinley but a personal favourite is ‘I Found That Love Of Mine’. In the mid 1980’s I visited a friend Sara Slade and her then flatmate Sue in Willesden one afternoon and got talking with a fellow dreadlocked brother. He was kicking some conscious knowledge about Earth Wind & Fire and Egyptology, which impressed me. He then stated that ‘Nights Over Egypt’ was about the forbidden love affair between Cleopatra and Mark Anthony because she was black and he was white. I’d never thought about that logically, but it made sense. I vowed if I ever get to speak to anyone behind that song I’d get conformation if it’s true. How do you remember ‘Nights Over Egypt’ being presented to you with its mystic musicality, and once you recorded it, did you feel it would be a Jones Girls cute staple classic?

We didn’t but Valorie did. When Dexter presented that song to us I liked it, but thought it was more jazz. Once they described how they wanted us to sing it with the lead voices in our unison and harmony, of course I was hooked. Just those intricate harmonies was a challenge for us and with Valorie and her perfect pitch we wanted to get it right. Later speaking

with Cynthia, who I’m still very close with to this day, she told us that she went to the library to research certain words and time periods, to make sure she was making proper placement and references in the song. It made me love the song and we recorded the song over and over to make it perfect. If Valorie had gotten her way, I believe, ‘Nights Over Egypt’, would have propelled us into one of the greatest groups of all time. She was the only person that felt, ’Nights Over Egypt’, should have been the kick off single for that album.

Gamble & Huff at the time had deal control over that album and decided their song, ‘I Found That Man Of Mine’, was first choice. ‘Nights Over Egypt’ was not even the second single it came third and by that time DJ’s had played it so much that it had an underground following. Yes it is true about Cleopatra and Mark Anthony. Cynthia told us that years ago and that’s why I mentioned earlier that Cynthia researched to look up that particular time period to make sure she was recording the story correctly.

To read the rest of the interview subscribe to www.thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

I’ve waited 33 years for that conformation and you’ve just done it so, thank you. (Shirley laughs, “You’re welcome.”)

Part two in issue 73 for December 2017 January 18 Edition of the magazine

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

Jemma Hatt speaks with

Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar

Do I even remember the tour? [Jeffrey laughs] We sold out all over the UK including Wembley Arena, it was more than amazing for us to be so accepted by the UK audiences. We weren’t expecting it at all.

Everyone was so accessible; I enjoyed King’s Road on Saturdays hanging out with Tom Bailey from Thompson Twins and Camden Palace on Thursdays hosted by Steve Strange. Those were the days when artists like Neneh Cherry and Sade were still up-and-coming, everyone went to Camden Palace on Thursdays and The Wag Club at the weekends. Wham used to drive me home!

Shalamar has always had a special relationship with the British public, dating right back to your Top of the Pops appearances.

You spent a lot of time in London during the 80s at a very interesting time in music.

Earlier this year you collected awards for Shalamar in two categories as voted for by Soul Survivors Magazine readers, including runner-up to Stevie Wonder for the Best Live Act of 2016. How was that night?

Music was so diverse, everybody was so original and different, right from Culture Club to ABC; Dexys Midnight Runners; Bow Wow Wow; Imagination. I felt like a kid in a candy shop! It was the Disneyland of music.

We’re very grateful to the British public for supporting us and to Soul Survivors for providing this platform. It was a very rewarding experience and a great night!

2017 is the 35th anniversary of the ‘Friends’ album, what are your memories of the original ‘Friends’ tour?

You got to know a lot of other artists at that time, right?

What can audiences expect at the Shalamar ‘Friends’ 35th Anniversary Tour starting in October, featuring yourself, Howard Hewett and Carolyn Griffey?

We want to pay tribute to the ‘Friends’ album so we’ll be adding more songs from it. People can dance and sing along, enjoying feel-good music! We’ll also be performing our new single, ‘The Real Thing’ which was written and produced by Shalamar’s original producer, Leon Sylvers.

How was it to be back in the studio with Leon?

Just like the old days. Leon isn’t just our producer, he’s my mentor too. I was laughing to myself as it was like being back in school again! He has the same feel for music, the same intensity and authenticity. Leon played bass guitar on Shalamar’s records in the 80s and I’m used to seeing him behind a huge mixing desk. Recording music is so different today; it was funny watching him at work on a computer in the studio, like an office worker!

Tickets are on sale for the Shalamar ‘Friends’ 35th Anniversary Tour across the UK from October to December 2017 – visit www. shalamar.info for all the details.

Page 32 - Issue 72

There is enough not on there for us to do a volume two and this is what Leroy really liked.

There are two previously unreleased cuts. ‘Now That I Found You’ and ‘Positive Forces’ which is a cover of The Tavares classic.

FITZROY SPEAKS WITH

EDDIE PILLER Eddie is a self confessed Leroy Hutson addict and signing Leroy’s whole catalogue and releasing them old and new on his new Acid Jazz baby, certainly makes Eddie feel like the luckiest ‘Lucky Fellow’.

When we last spoke there was a pending record deal between Acid Jazz and Leroy Hutson. It’s officially ready now. As a huge fan, which song was it that got your attention?

Around 1985-86 I was very lucky to get a copy of the ‘Hutson 2’ album, a lesser know track ‘Don’t It Make You Feel Good’ was the track that really got me into Leroy Hutson. To be honest, he is the best producer I’ve come across. Even now I still love his work and I’ve been very vocal about it. So finally I persuaded him to sign with Acid Jazz and the deal is done. The single ‘Positive Forces’ sold out in a week and we have another single at Christmas, then there is going to be a double album anthology. Then we are going to release every single album over the next 12 months. His stuff has not been available for 25 years apart from buying bootlegs. He’s happy and we’re happy.

‘Positive Forces’ is the single first single. What is the second single?

‘I Found You’.

Well was it Leroy’s version of ‘Positive Forces’ first? Leroy says the song was written by his keyboard player at Curtom, so then the keyboard player offered it to Tavares and it became the B side of one of the biggest selling singles of all time. However the truth is in the distant past and we don’t know. But what we do know is that Leroy has a lot of other unreleased songs that I’m very keen to get out there. He’s an artist who has a great body of work and he’s not as interested as us Brits are but that’s how we roll and what we love is unreleased material.

When is that due to come out?

The anthology is out in October and ‘Now That I Found You’ comes out at the end of September. It’s a different kind of tune but I love Leroy for what he does. The funny thing is when he sent us the masters for the ‘Unforgettable’ album, the title track was missing. We had to phone him and say “Mr Hutson why Is it missing?” and he replied, “Because I don’t like it.”

He told me that he wasn’t happy with the disco songs.

I said we could put the album out without the title track. We are going to remix it because the intro is like a GQ tune and has a great feel. It’s just the chorus and the song that Leroy doesn’t like. So we donna get The Reflex a very big Disco remixer and he is going to do a disco remix from the original masters which gets rid of the bits he doesn’t like.

Anything else forthcoming?

I can imagine, I would have liked to have seen ‘Classy Lady’ on there actually.

We are going to be releasing a few of the Leroy Hutson productions that have inspired me in my record producing career with the likes of Jamiroquai and The Brand New Heavies. I’ve used his productions as a bench mark. I want to do an album called Leroy Hutson presents which will include Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Arnold Blair, Voices Of East Harlem and all his productions as he’s not just a song writer and performer, he’s also a massive producer. One thing I’ll get out now is that I think, and Mr Hutson will agree with me, he’s been more valued as a producer and performer more so here than in America. They gave up on soul music apart from in small pockets in America along time ago. But Mr Hutson isn’t as valued as much over there as he is here, because of our love for Leroy.

Page 34 - Issue 72

Thanks Eddie.

With the compilation you mentioned is that the one that you’ve sent you me?

Yes, what we are actually doing is a definitive anthology from 1972-1984. Look at the cover. Do you know what Leroy said when he saw that? He said, “That’s my wife’s favourite picture of me.” I asked “Why Leroy?” and “It’s because she knitted the tank top and the hat.” So we are really thrilled and it was difficult for me and Dean Rudland to go through the track listing because it could have been four times as big.

POSITIVE FORCES 7” Single (AJX413S)

NOW THAT I FOUND YOU 7” Single (AJX429S)

ANTHOLOGY 1972-84 CD (AJXCD419) & 2xLP (AJX2LP414)

COMING NEXT YEAR ON LP/CD

Leroy Hutson and Hutson II T Shirts available from the website www.acidjazz.co.uk thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk Distributed by PIAS

ith Fitzroy speaks w

Tony Q aka Frenchie

With a passion for music (and his unknown to him, providential destiny) Anthony Quailey was to champion the cause of recognition for his beloved Pipkin famed black country city of Birmingham. Events of a mixed fortunes proportion would unfold for Frenchie to become a nucleus in the DJs, venues, weekenders, club nights and music arena in and around the heart of Birmingham. Wearing various hats over the years, he has at times fallen out of love with what the industry brings. However now with experiencing an unfortunate set of circumstances Frenchie is turning those into a positive thing, and raising the awareness of something debilitating, that at some point we will all probably experience directly or indirectly. He welcomes you into his VIP lounge so relax and enjoy the hospitality.

Tell me about growing up in the UK midlands coming from a West Indian heritage and what surrounded you musically.

I come from a British Afro Caribbean background. Musically I was influenced with soca calypso and reggae. I frequented regular sound systems and discos like any young kid on that scene with my mates. Towards the end of the 1970s I noticed my influences were starting to become more and more soulful.

I liked listening to Radio Luxembourg and local radio stations playing reggae and soul. The jazz funk scene really started to have an influence on me but I didn’t really know that scene properly. I was really keen on the music and I became more influenced when I hung with a mate of mine, who was in a band at the time with the lead vocalist being a then unknown, Jaki Graham.

Local DJ Graham Warr, who was instrumental on the Birmingham jazz funk scene at the time, had a record shop in the Oasis market. On occasions during my lunchtime break I used to have a look at music in his store, I was also aware of DJs coming to buy music in his shop. I was also influenced by an ex-partner who liked the music herself, looking through her collection I discovered Rinder & Lewis ‘Lust’, Lonnie Liston Smith, James Brown and Creative Source. She and also a friend, who came up from Page 36 - Issue 72

London, really encouraged that side to me. By now the soul and funky side was really starting to take over, more than the reggae side, even though I used to love listening to Mafia, Jah Shaka and Fatman sound systems. One of my favourite records around that time was Melba Moore ‘You Stepped Into My Life’. I wanted to go out more to soul gigs and I discovered the all dayers.

So coming from a predominately black reggae audience and venturing into the more soulful and funkier side of things, what was the contrast between the reggae and the jazz funk events?

What did it for me was that on the jazz funk side I felt I was more at home. I loved the reggae and the sound systems but I’d found my true calling in the soul world. Throughout this time I was always a keen record buyer, from around 1977 onwards I started purchasing more funk and soul records than reggae. With the discos, dancing and the image, it was also more of a black and white mix. There was also certain arrogance about the scene that I admired, and I wanted to fit in to that scene. You had to look good, dance well and appreciate the music. However I wasn’t that good on the dance floor, and used to admire the DJ’s working behind the decks because I wanted to be a DJ too.

Can you name any of the dancers and the tracks?

Records that influenced me were Mantus ‘Dance In Freestyle’, Kleeer, Crown Heights Affair, Rodney Franklin, Lonnie Liston Smith Earth Wind Fire and good disco and funk tracks. I found with the dancers we had The Twins Rick & Ty, Carl & Lance, Mr Peppermint Jam aka Errol Reynolds and his brother Delroy who were jazz dancers in Birmingham. Errol T, Trevor Hodge, the Baptiste bros and many other great dancers on the funky side. This was before the next generation of dancers that

came later, like Bulldog, Lizard and Gully. I used to watch these guys, go home and practice but I wasn’t really cutting it and became more fixated with buying music. I also had a young family at the time.

I knew Trevor Hodge and we conversed often when we both worked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre’s ‘Starlight Express’ musical. I worked front of house and Trevor was one of the Rocky dancers in the show. How did you progress to becoming a DJ? I was in a sound system with my brothers but met up with another avid record buyer collector called Paul ‘Mix Wizard ‘ Dixon. We started to put together a DJ team and called ourselves The Atlantic Connection. We used to play at various parties and our first gig as promoters pulled in about 20 people. We were playing ‘Warriors’ by Hiroshima and Rodney Franklin tracks as we wanted to become jazz funk DJ’s. This was around 1980 and I was by this time going to some of The Locarno and Bali Hai all dayers.

What DJ’s were carrying the swing at that time?

I received a letter from Bob Killbourne from Blues & Soul. He was asking me to contribute to the Blues & Soul magazine representing The Midlands area.”

Rum Runner and at the all dayers on a Sunday and Monday night, the scene was evolving. This bit sounds like a scene out of a movie. I was made redundant and was looking for a job. I was celebrating with my redundancy money with my young family around 11pm one night. I walked past Temple Street in the city of Birmingham and heard music, coming from a record shop, that had been open just two weeks. It was Summit Records the proprietor Winston Gordon allowed me inside to buy some music. My partner at the time suggested I asked for a job in the shop and to be honest I didn’t think I had a chance. I returned back to the shop and asked for a job but he had already filled his full time post, however he offered me a part time job. That was around October 1981 and that started my association with Summit Records.

Ok for the benefit of those who are unaware, give us the story of how integral you were to the Birmingham scene whilst at Summit Records.

I was a young man about 23, very naive, very green but I had a fantastic passion for music. As far as Birmingham was concerned the

I’d have to say Graham Warr, Colin Curtis, and Dave Till with Shaun Williams who played at The Rum Runner were those that did it for me. However it was Colin Curtis who always seemed to play something that blew my mind, like the first time I heard Arthur Adams ‘You Got The Floor’, Rockie Robbins ‘Time To Think’ and Donald Byrd ‘Love Has Come Around’. He just had a style that made me clock on to how he played. I started playing parties at my flat, my Mum’s and at Paul’s house. We started to generate a name for ourselves. Shaun Williams was very influential in Birmingham with the thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

all dayers scene literally died. Locarno had closed, but the Rum Runner was still going, yet there was a void with no all dayers in Birmingham. People were travelling out of town to Nottingham, Stoke, Stafford, Manchester and London etc. to listen to good music. I was working at Summit around late 1981 and a promoter from Preston, Kenny Khan, stated he was looking for a club to start the Birmingham all dayers again. At the time I was calling myself Frenchie T. The name Frenchie came from me reading Blues & Soul. I had a fascination with the Caister music scene. My mate Paul Dixon called himself the ‘Mix Wizard’ and I called myself Frenchie, because I noticed there was a DJ called Sean French and his nickname was Frenchie. So I took Frenchie and added the T for Tony from my name hence Frenchie T. Does Sean French know this? (Frenchie: “No.”) He’ll find out now though.

No because I did not know him or any of the Caister DJ fraternity.

Kenny Khan said if I helped him to find a club he would look after me, we started the first all dayer around 1982 at Maximillian’s Five ways in Birmingham. It really started to grow with DJ’s like Colin Curtis, Jonathan, Shaun William’s, Trevor M and local boys Paul ‘Mix Wizard’, Chris Reid & Eric X. So this new all dayer scene started to develop in Birmingham, and after Maximillians it went to Snobs, which had two rooms.

That’s when we featured Paul Murphy, Baz For Jazz and Chris Rhythm Doctor. Moving forward we managed to tie down the old Romeo & Juliet’s which went through different names like Pagoda Park and Steptoe’s and we held a series of all dayers there. Birmingham was growing with people coming from all over the country to attend. I was a bit of a rebel and questioned why nobody ever spoke about Birmingham. I used to send journals to Blues & Soul trying to get Birmingham noticed. During this time The Locarno was getting refurbished and was now called The Power House. With a different promoter we started selling tickets through the shop for loads of different functions around the country. The shop became a bit of an information spot and a vibe for the DJs to congregate. It was great but at the time I wasn’t too bothered about DJ-ing I just wanted to be everybody’s friend. I was very grateful to be a part of the scene and development in Birmingham. I was starting to get a reputation, not sure that I was considered a good DJ, but people knew who I was. The Powerhouse came along and really started to take off with the nightclub called The Rock City in Nottingham, where I became Page 38 - Issue 72

a bit more political in the background. Malu Halusa was the contributor for the north and the midlands section in Blues & Soul at the time and she interviewed me. Then one day out of the blue, I received a letter from Bob Killbourne from Blues & Soul. He was asking me to contribute to the Blues & Soul magazine representing The Midlands area. I was now selling records, DJ-ing and writing for a magazine promoting the Birmingham and the midland scene.

Are we talking 1983 with the Powerhouse when you met Cleveland Anderson?

The first time I met Cleveland was at Steptoe’s or Romeo & Juliet’s because Kenny Khan booked him for an all dayer.

Fair play to Cleveland as he used to promote himself very, very well with coaches from London. What used to make me smile was the Birmingham and London competitiveness with dancing and girls that was quite funny.

The reason I ask is because I was one of those London boys.

For a time with the all dayers around the midlands and the north, ‘Mix Wizard’ and I were the coach organisers. I was in the perfect place at Summit and knew most of the DJs on the scene. I was a focal point for information. I have seen so many great records and DJs come through the shop from soul, jazz and electro and we started to see the scene fragmenting creating separate scenes. I was asked to coordinate the all dayers at the Hummingbird nightclub with my friends. We promoted Kenny G, Paz, Morrissey Mullen and Onward International at those all dayers. We promoted four all dayers in total and I first met Gordon Mac and Mastermind at that gig. I helped to set up and manage a break dance crew by getting the best dancers together to form a crew. I was asked by Cecil Morris Music Master on PCRL Radio, to present a radio show on his brand new radio station. I was one of the six original presenters and the third presenter on the brand new radio station. It was launched on my birthday Thursday 23rd May 1985 and Andy Sokja gave me a special record to start my radio show debut, with Sahara ‘Love So Fine’. I became frustrated with the imbalance of reggae and soul on the station so I set up my own pirate station with a collective of six others. The station was called Second City Radio. It was a difficult time and it did not last very long at the time. The Chicago house scene was starting to grow and the scene was starting to change.

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How did those new changes impact on you?

I had become disillusioned and burnt out with music and politics so I took some time out.

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

A friend persuaded me to do a weekend radio station instead.

When I first tried to run the seven day station I received technical support from Tony Monson at the time an engineer at Solar. Later on one of my guest DJs at The Humming Bird all dayer, Gordon Mac was involved with pirate Radical Radio Kiss FM. I received technical support from him to set up the weekend radio station with a friend. It was a Friday to Sunday radio station which gave me more of my life back.

I must admit that it was lively and full of vibes it was a great period. It was the first soul and dance station running in Birmingham up until about 1991. I eventually started my own record shop. With a bit of help from Malcolm Bell, it was based within another record shop Pure. I called the shop Frenchie’s Music Shack and I did this for about 4 years. It was great at times, but the Internet and financial restraints killed off the shop. This would have been around 1995.

I think a lot of shops suffered like that. What was your next move?

I took another break from the industry as it had become very toxic for me. In 2011 I received a phone call from Dave VJ who was writing a book ‘Masters Of The Airwaves’ with Lindsay Wesker, who wanted me to contribute in the book.

Dave used to work at Lightening Records and unknown to the both of us, we used to speak to each other regularly buying and selling of records. At this point I was now just being a punter, going to clubs and weekenders and having a laugh with my friends socially. A massive trigger for me coming back into the fold, was going to Southport 49 in Minehead in 2011.

I was amazed at how things had progressed and re-touched base with Gordon Mac. I asked Lindsay and Dave VJ, if they were ever going to promote their book around the country, I wanted to have the Birmingham promotion. They were good at keeping their word and I promoted the Birmingham launch in which I travelled around the country promoting the book and the gig. I was reconnecting with my past touching base with old contacts and I started to fall in love with music again.

Moving forward in 2014 I started presenting a radio show Page 40 - Issue 72

called The VIP Lounge at the Kitten Club. My first show was on 27 April 2014. I was buzzing because I was playing music that I loved. I always loved house music and never got the chance to play it back in the day. Certain people like Andy Ward of The Vocal Booth Weekender (I used to sponsor his radio show on Choice FM) and Deli G were playing house and busting the tunes that I wanted to hear. I got the bug for playing music again. The radio experience was fun and I was playing music and doing interviews with other people who had similar experiences to me. This led to me speaking to artists who also influenced me. Looking back I am blessed to have spoken with so many guest artists like Shirley Jones, Kathy Sledge and Will Downing, Najee, Phil Perry, Tom Browne, Stephanie Cooke, Barbara Tucker and Dawn Tallman.

How are things for you now?

In 2011 unfortunately I lost my Mother to Alzheimers and dementia. On the day my Mother passed, I was called at work from home where my Mother was being looked after, and was informed that Mum’s health was deteriorating. So we knew that she didn’t have long and it was ironic I decided to share stories of my life with her, and I could see her eyes light up at certain points. I was not to know that this was going to be the last time I was going to see my Mother alive. I made a promise during the time with her that I would do something in her memory and for the family. Unfortunately now my Father suffers with vascular dementia, which has been a bit hard to take. I am now compelled to do a special memorial that no one in our family will forget. I’ve been in touch with the Alzheimers society and also with music and media outlets who are contributing sponsorship on the promotion. I have to thank you Fitzroy and Soul Survivors in advertising and speaking with me for the magazine. I’m going to try and raise £10,000 for the Alzheimer society as a present in memory of my Mother. This event is a Black and White Dinner and Dance Charity Event with entertainment and a special auction on Saturday 11th November at The Cobden Hotel Hagley Road Birmingham.

I’ve literally got your life story there so doing this and becoming more aware of your contribution is appropriate with the pending charity event. It’s a great cause that will affect us all directly or indirectly.

Thanks Fitz Cheers Anthony.

We got out and saw Jackie Wilson getting his luggage out.

My Father said, “This is Beauty Ware’s Grandson, your aunt’s son”

ith Fitzroy speaks w

Bruce ‘Mississippi’ Johnson As a very late entry to this edition practically last min.com, I felt that Bruce’s journey, as an old school newbie should be included. Bruce is a natural born thriller ‘straight outta Mississippi’ with the sound of the deep south expediting its self orally from his mouth. His journey is an interesting one before he finally finds his vocation singing with his deep baritone voice. He is, in my opinion, a hidden gem, Jaheim ‘Diamond In The Ruff’ waiting to be discovered. So check out this 6 six foot plus gentle giant’s spirit cause his experience is ‘The Deal Baby’.

How was life growing up in Mississippi around the music and the climate of the early 1960s, with you developing a connection with the area so much so that your stage name incorporates Mississippi? (Bruce: “Right.”)

I was born in 1959 and raised in a Baptist environment because my Grandfather was a pastor. My Mother was one of eleven children so I have a lot of aunts and uncles. We went to church without fail every Sunday for my whole childhood life. When I got out of Mississippi the last thing I wanted to see was a church. I grew up in that environment and as it was the 1960s I listened to The Temptations, Aretha Franklin and James Brown as my favourites. Whilst it was known as being a racist place I don’t remember seeing much racism in Mississippi. I think it was fairly established that no one crossed the line but when I went to the north it was a different climate. I remember when I went home a few years ago I took my wife, who is British and white to meet my family for the first time. It was also the first time she’d been dropped into a black neighbourhood. I remember her meeting my people and not dealing with it the way a normal white USA southern human being would. She’d look them in the eye and embrace my family in a way that my family had never seen from white people. My aunt sent me a message when I got back to

London saying ‘When your wife grabbed me, I knew she was alright”. It’s not the same in London like it is in Mississippi.

While we were in Mississippi there was a white gentleman who was going to get his shoes shinned in a shop downtown I was with my wife and saw him drive up to the front the shop, stop his Cadillac in the middle of the street then he held his shoes outside the window as a little black boy ran out and grabbed them and took them into the shop. That’s where they still are in Mississippi. People are under the impression that America is more equal than that, but it’s not. This whole thing with Trump is nothing new it’s always been there but it’s now just coming to the surface. Although I didn’t sing myself, I grew up in my Grandfather’s church listening to the gospel groups, and all the emotion that was present in the southern Baptist experience. The piano players and the singers were not great but the spirit was there. Then I met my Dad at ten years old, whom I had never met. He came into my life took me to Indianapolis where I met his side of the family that I’d known nothing of. So I met seven aunts and three uncles and a new Grandma. The way of life in the city I wasn’t comfortable with because I was teased as being a country boy and it was quite hard for me. I literally knew no one there and as a ten year old things were quite hardcore. My dad was twenty-nine years old when I met him and he was out running the streets, he was thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

popular with the ladies and he had a great record collection.

I got into another side of soul listening to BB King and the old groups like the Dramatics.

How are you related to the great soul singer Jackie Wilson?

He was my Mother’s first cousin. I always heard of him coming to Mississippi but I lived with my paternal Great Grandmother away from my Grandmother who was his aunt. When he came I never got a chance to meet him. He became this magical being to me. I remember seeing the telegraph that my Grandmother had saying her brother Jackie Wilson Snr had passed. I moved to Indianapolis in 1973 and attended high school there. My Dad and I heard that Jackie Wilson was in town for a show so my Dad said “Let’s go and find him.” So we jumped in the car with the intention of finding Jackie Wilson in the tenth largest city in America. My Dad knew a lot of people and I kid you not within an hour we found Jackie Wilson getting out of a car in a motel parking lot by himself. My Dad drove up and we got out and saw Jackie Wilson getting his luggage out. My Father said, “This is Beauty Ware’s Grandson, your aunt’s son” and he acknowledged this information. He told my Father to bring me to his show but unfortunately being around thirteen or fourteen, I was too young to see the show. Had I seen him I’m not sure how that would have impacted on my life and it’s a regret of mine that will never go away. I love that I met him but I didn’t see him perform.

How did you end up in the Marines?

I didn’t feel like I was school or university material. I knew that my Dad was a little too crazy and had ways that were not really good for me and I needed a way out. I’d already taken a course at school called ROTC which was a Reserve Officers Training Course. There were military recruiters who visited my school regularly speaking about all these beautiful places saying that you could be a man and see the world. It appealed to me and I asked my Dad to sign the papers before I was of age and he gave me permission to go. I went into the Marines once I was the legal age with the ideology of equality and all being one family, but boy that was a racist place and really disappointing for me. My first encounter with singing was entering a talent show in high school where I was in a duo singing a song called ‘Searching For Another Love’.

It was the first time that I felt validated as an individual. I heard stuff that kids shouldn’t hear about themselves from relatives whilst I was growing up like, I was good for nothing.

Anyway I ended up replacing a guy in the talent show and once I started singing, I got attention from the screaming girls. All of a sudden I existed but I’d already signed for the Marines. This would have been around 1975-76. I stayed for seven years. I lived in California and Hawaii and from Hawaii, Page 42 - Issue 72

I toured South East Asia to places like the Philippines, China, Thailand and afterwards I was stationed in Africa. It was there that I discovered Gil Scott Heron and began performing his songs with an African band. I had an African girlfriend and played for an African basketball team, so singing became my way out, as I wasn’t cut out to be a career military man. I managed to get out on stage as a soloist and make my first change as a singer I was then shipped to Paris for eighteen months around December 1982.

How was the Parisian experience?

It was great. As a Marine, one of my buddies was taking piano lessons and he told me about a guy who gave vocal lessons.

The vocal coach told me I had a great voice and that he did sessions at a club and he’d book me if I put a jazz repertoire together. In this club there were many expats who’d played with many of the greats like Sammy Davis Jnr, Glen Miller, Keith Jarrett and Stan Getz. So I hired all these guys to back me, and that’s how I learned my craft as a jazz singer including working with the artistic director for Ray Charles, Onzy Matthews. Everyone used to come to this place called The Hollywood Savoy, which was frequented, by a lot of stars and musicians. It’s how I got my teeth into jazz.

I read that you entered the French version of ‘The Voice’ so tell me about that.

I got a contact from a guy on Facebook saying we’d met via a mutual friend ten years before, and he wanted to talk to me about doing a show in Paris. I gave him my number and he called me whilst I was on the Eurostar to Paris going to a private party. He asked me if I’d like to audition for The Voice and I said yes, although previously I promised myself, I wouldn’t do a reality TV show. Something said to me to say yes. I had to prepare for my performance in Paris and he said when I got there to grab a cab and come straight away to the studio to audition. When I arrived, I was introduced to the vocal coach who happened to be a friend of mine from years ago. All the people in the band were musicians I’d worked with over the years. I didn’t know the producer personally, but he turned out to be a producer who had produced a record for Cunnie Williams. I performed his song ‘Saturday’ in my act so it was quite a coincidence. I sang as practice ‘Saturday’, ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley and I made it to the first battles, and then I was out. I was frustrated and questioned as to why this had happened, but they choose the songs and dressed you up. I was scheduled to do ‘Crazy’ for the blind auditions but then they changed my audition song and told me to choose a song from by James Morrison or Barry White’s ‘You’re My First, My Last, My Everything’.

I went for Barry’s song reluctantly because in my opinion,

Barry White does not write melodies that showcase a voice. He lays down sexiness and tones, but not melody with melodic range. After The Voice I got a telephone call from TF1 who were The Voice’s production company inviting me to participate in a tribute to The Rat Pack project. I said yes and auditioned some songs and the three singer format turned into thirteen French pop stars including Paul Anka and I. The album came out and went triple platinum.

The second album did ok with Paul Anka and Michael Bublee performing, so I managed to get that as a bonus out of The Voice. That was in 2012.

I hear the story telling of Bill Withers, a bit of Johnny Guitar Watson and an essence of Gregory Porter, but what I hear potentially is a voice of distinction. How do you find your voice when you have had experiences of people trying to mould you compared to an open eared audience who accept your true artistry, especially with this your first album?

I started writing songs, lyrics and melodies in 1986 but as I can’t play an instrument I couldn’t play one of my songs if you put a gun to my head. I can sit down and pluck a piano and figure a melody out but I also know the right people who can take the song to another level. I started singing professionally from 1984 and I’ve progressed along the way with great jazz and soul songs in my repertoire. People like Al Jarraeu, Bobby McFerrin and Gregory Porter have always been around in my répertoire. No one helped me with the album, my piano player and I started writing songs, pulled up some cash and paid the studio time. A friend of mine did the cover photo so again we did it independently with no one telling us what to do. The only other person who helped me is Big Joe Turner because I fronted his band and he called all the shots with the band. I got to a point where I wanted to hear compliments from him and pushed to get that and it gave me confidence. I have a thing of listening to good singers and gain my inspiration from that.

How is the album doing?

It’s been out since May and the album has had a lot of great press. I received an award from Living Blues 2017 as an Artist who deserves more attention and we did a sold out album release concert at the 606 club in Chelsea! We are actively trying to find and organise gigs and festivals the DIY way

https://itunes

Avail .apple .com/us able from /album/thedeal- baby/id

1238680552

until we can hook up with the right people who can make those thing happen.

Are you doing a lot of gigs in the UK? I’m new in the UK as far as gigging is concerned. People have rarely seen me as I was doing a lot of gigs in Italy and making good money and still have connections in France. It has delayed me taking care of business here but now things have shifted and I’m here and ready. I’m happy to be new in the market but just want to be seen so once again I’m looking for the right people to put me into the market.

I’ll try and hook you up with someone like Adrian Gibson who is versatile in his concert acts. It’s been good speaking with you Bruce.

Thanks Fitzroy and I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

Licks 6 Andy McGall - Friday: On 11th August 2017, Rhythm Assembly ‘Licks’ Lovers like myself found ourselves departing from all corners of the UK to converge on our new home in Weston Super Mare for Licks 6. Despite being early arrivals, Licks 6 was well and truly underway and, whilst again the original plan was to go back to the Sleeping Quarters, Shaq D quickly hi-jacked this, as ‘just one more song’ became the ‘excuse’ to stay where we were. Then the realisation ‘Oh we haven’t been downstairs yet.’

Yes, you have guessed it another wonderful venue, great atmosphere, an impromptu break dance challenge and DJ after DJ making it impossible for us to leave. A wonderful location, a carefully selected compatible selection of excellent DJs, not a Security doorman in sight (they were there - not that anyone noticed) and a weekend monitored/overseen by organisers who were genuinely attentive in wanting us punters to get value for our ticket prices. Quality music, dancing, laughing, possibly too much drink and/or seaside junk food combined with a lack of sleep were all ingredients in the ‘Licks 6 cocktail’ on offer all weekend and that refreshed and revitalised us all and gave us more special happy memories for life.

Licks 6 …Congratulations and Thanks to all The Rum Shop Crew - Roll on Licks 7 Kimberley Lamb Saturday: They say that there ain’t no party like a Rum Shop party and with my usual curious self I was determined to find out if this was true. So on Saturday 13th August my husband and I took a relaxed train journey to Weston Super Mare and let me just say that were not disappointed at all. Hours later with brilliant tunes being fired off left right and centre, we were both dancing freely away on the Grande Pier balcony, overlooking a beautiful beach looking out to the calm sea, without an absolute care in the world. I can confirm that the declaration on their website that the event was for “Lovers of Soulful Music and Good times” is correct! So there we were with no kids, no taxis to organise, no long walks back to our accommodation. Everything and everyone was central. This was one of many events that we had planned to celebrate our 21st Wedding Anniversary and we both agree that coming to Licks 6 was a fantastic and memorable choice. We’re making a firm mental note to definitely book again for next year, this time bringing more friends with us so that they too can enjoy a weekend of “soulful music and shenanigans”. Just brilliant!

Event Reviews

Margate Soul Festival August 4-6th 2017 This was my fifth Margate Soul Festival and I’m thanking all those who came and supported all four of my sets at The Lighthouse. Every one of those sessions was busy as was the venue when Grant Fisher, Grumpy Brown and special guest Gerard Frisina laid down the coolest jazz, funk, soul, Latin, samba and broken beat grooves. Olbys and the Black Kat were majorly busy with Mi Soul taking over like their promotion mantra advises. Revenge Of The Soulboys despite an interruption of some heavy rain, maintained an audience in the market square.

Saturday afternoon Marc Evans gave a ‘Supernatural’ performance in the outside area of The Winter Gardens. In evening I managed to catch a little bit of an impressive Arrested Development set in the packed Winter Gardens,.. Sunday was a busy day with Zero Radio controlling the piazza line and formation dancing, whilst Revenge Of The Soulboys had a healthy crowd entertained by Paul Trouble Anderson, Aitch B and Bob Masters. Joe Bataan was awesome. This ‘Afro Filipino’ is no ‘Ordinary Guy’, was full of charisma and spiritual energy, and his rich voice and musicality touched me deeply. The Winter Gardens Blackbyrds’ concert was professionally and musically well executed featuring original members, Keith Killgoe, Orville Saunders and Joe Hall. They did all their classics anthems ‘Walking In Rhythm’, ‘ Rock Creek Park’ and ‘Do It Fluid’. The weather held out for most of the weekend and there are certainly more soul survivors travelling from all over the country to experience the funkiest weekender in Kent. Well done Eli and his MSF team!!

Page 44 - Issue 72

Camp Soul Oxford 26-28th August There was plenty MFSB ‘Sunnin’ & Funnin’ music with a a Sly Stone ‘ Family Affair’ atmosphere Saturday afternoon at the Carry On Campsoul weekender. By the main stage Oxford’s local Zhane ‘Hey Mr DJ Darrell S and I played a mixture of USA and UK Brit jazz funk and soul, before the first live act The Brit Funk Association graced the stage. The renditions of ‘London Town’, ‘Walking Into Sunshine’, ‘Funky Stuff’, ‘British Hustle’ and ‘Swingin’, had this country folk barn, line and square dancing jazz funk soul style. Tony Fernandez did one of the most inspiring and uplifting sets I’ve heard him do, mixing a ménage of classics including Johnny Hammond ‘Fantasy’ and New York City’s ‘I’m Doing Fine Now’ . I made it ‘Just In Time’ like Raw Silk on the Sunday afternoon, to see the smooth gravelled voiced Keni Stevens and his daughter perform. Keni always sounds smooth like silk, but his daughter Jessica Stevens certainly won the Campsoul’s Got Talent audience over for sure. She sang duet with her father cover classics ‘I’m Every Woman’ and ‘Young Hearts Young Free’.. Andy Cole took his audience on a Northern Soul trip and I was touched by the retro selection from Mark Whiffin. Mark played Ben E King ‘We Got Love’, Salsoul Orchestra ‘ Sun After The Rain’ and took us to church on that particular Sunday with NYCC ‘ Make Every Day Count’. Hallelujah and praise you Sir. With a vocal, horn, bass and lead guitar and keyboard ensemble, B-funkt covered some of the jazz funk classic including ‘Turn The Music Up’, ‘Check Out The Groove’ and ‘Get Down To The Mellow Sound’. They’ve may have appeared to be local Average White Band being with a bit of ‘Work To Do’, enhancing their craft. However when Brass Construction legend Randy Muller was invited up on stage, to do an impromptu rendition of ‘Changin’, it took their performance to another level, Randy and his new adopted brass re constructed players made it unforgettable tick box moment for B-funkt. It was for me a very successful weekend. Shaun Gallagher, Julie Prince and their A Team, take a bow.

MF Robots – Margate Soul Weekender – Rob James Review Sunday 6th August Ok, so it was my First Margate Soul Festival, the place was sure buzzing. Having spent the day (Sunday 6th August) chatting with lots of Soul Friends, in the Jan, Adrian Fitzroy & Clem evening I made my way to the Winter Gardens, to watch The Blackbyrds. First up (Ealing boys) before them, was MF Robots, not having seen them live, I was wondering what I would witness, but man did they deliver! Starting with their own penned tunes such as ‘The Night is Calling’ ‘Believe in Love’ etc, I watched in amazement as the stage show and production of what they delivered was first class.

Later in their set, they amazed me even further covering two great classic tracks, The Crusaders ‘Keep That Same Old Feeling’ and the Chairman of the Board’s wicked 1973 Instrumental ‘Finders Keepers’! The vocals of Dawn Joseph where outstanding, and the influence of Jan Kincaid (formerly of The Brand New Heavies) with the Band, was evident as they played a solid tight set.

So if you get the chance to catch an up and coming MF Robots Gig, please do, as they sure are one band to watch out for!

Rob James (Delite Radio)

Photos except Licks 6 taken by Anna Benton

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

Shalamar Friends 35th Anniversary Tour various dates (see advert page 33) 26th Eastleigh, 28th Norwich, 29th Great Yarmouth, 31st Bury St Edmonds

What's going on?

October

In October should read Catch Fitzroy’s The Soul Survivor Show on Solar Radio Monday 30th October 3pm-6pm on Sky Digital channel 0129 or www.solaarradio.com

November Shalamar Friends 35th Anniversary Tour various dates (see advert page 33)

13th - 15th October Soul-Galore Weekender at The Grand Burstin Hotel Leas Cliff Hall Folkestone Kent

Nov 3rd St Albans, 4th Bognor, 5th Skegness, 8th Wolverhampton, 9th Glasgow, 10th Barrow, 12th Lincoln, 16th Salisbury, 17th Coventry, 18th Preston,

Eric Benet Live In Concert Thursday 26th October at Electric Town Hall Parade Brixton SW2 1RJ Special guest Omar and support form Don-E ft Natasha Watts DJ’s Hey Essay & Vivy B (see advert)

Nov 11th The Soulful Eclectic VIP Lounge Black & White dinner & dance charity auction at Cobden Hotel 166 Hagley Road Birmingham DJ’s Frenchie & Fitzroy (Soul Survivors) (see advert on page 39)

22nd October - Eat, drink and dance at Any Old Sunday’s “Summer in the city sessions.” – Boho, Inverness Street, Camden – Fitzroy Soul Survivors and guests - 3pm–11pm FREE ENTRY

The Brit Funk Association Live In Concert Chelmsford City Racecourse Sat Nov 11th (see advert back page)

30th & 31st October Fitzroy Soul Survivors spins at Happy Face 13 Rue Aubernon, 06600 Antibes, France 8pm-2am

Page 46 - Issue 72

Soulfully Yours Wed 15th November Thur 16th November Friday November 19th November (see advert page 25) 18th November Fitzroy Soul SurvivorHustle Jam & Boogie at Olby’s King Street Margate CT9 1DD

A New Night To Remember November 18th 2017 7pm-1am Josh Milan, Bob Jones, Graham Grumpy Brown David Lyn Paul Garland Steve Laming, Rume & Sugar N01 Warehouse West India Quay Canary Wharf London E14 4 AL (see advert) 19th November - Eat, drink and dance at Any Old Sunday’s “Summer in the city sessions.” – Boho, Inverness Street, Camden – Fitzroy Soul Survivors and guests - 3pm–11pm FREE ENTRY Shalamar Friends 35th Anniversary Tour various dates (see advert page 33) 3rd St Albans, 4th Bognor,5th Skegness,8th Wolverhampton, 9th Glasgow, 10th Barrow, 12th Lincoln, 16th Salisbury, 17th Coventry, 18th Preston, 19th Benidorm, 23rd Wrexham, 24th Cardiff, 25th Sheffield, 28th Southend

January 2018 5th-7th January 2017 Luxury Soul Weekender Hilton Hotel, Blackpool Linda Clifford, Shirley Jones Keni Burke (see advert page 31)

August 2018 15th - 26th August 2018 - Love Is The Message in Barbados (See advert on page 27)

December 2017 Shalamar Friends 35th Anniversary Tour various dates (see advert page 33) 1st London, 2nd Brighton

thesoulsurvivorsmagazine.co.uk

THE

BRIT FUNK ASSOCIATION

LIVE in Concert

at Chelmsford City Racecourse

Saturday 11th November 2017 from 7pm til 1am

TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE

www.soulexpressionpromotions.com or call us on 07931 778167