80s/90s Brit soul singers - where did they go?
m_dejean
Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut. 2,946 Posts
Canonical's Soul II Soul post in the trades forum made me pull out that "Back To Life" 12" with all those acapella breakdown versions on it for the first time in many years. I completely forgot what an amazing voice Caron Wheeler has. I used to play "Living In The Light" on repeat. What happened to her? The last I heard was some backup singing on "Mama's Gun". Then I pulled out Will Downing's take on "A Love Supreme" which I also haven't played in years. Still holds up for its time even though the panflute intro and "fonk" sax are very '88ish. I really like his voice too. He did some uplifting house vocals in the 90s and then he seemed to vanish from the music industry. Where did ol' Willy D go? Mica Paris?If I'm sleeping and they just dropped a good new album like Omar, please forgive me. I might be out of the loop. Brit heads, let me know the deal.
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Oh man, one post in and the thread has already been derailed
I dunno..I like that video where she was walking around naked the whole time.
BTW, where's Rick Astley working the french-fry machine these days???
Carleen still does a lot of session work, I believe. Jhelisa had a new record out recently, but I've not heard it. I knew a guy at her old label, so I used to see her around quite a bit. She was a little crazy, but in a nice way - I actually had a bit of a crush on her, to tell the truth.
The one who's always overlooked as far as the Anderson girls go is Pamela, who sang with D-Note and Incognito - a seriously underrated singer with an incredible voice. I saw her perform with D-Note once, and I had goose-pimples just thinking about it for weeks afterwards.
You need to get hold of "Big Thing" by her old band, Blue Zone. Underground Britsoul classic. And if you dis "Been Around The World", you dis yourself.
What ever happened to Five Star and Loose Ends? I liked the former, but the latter were my group during the mid-late 80's. Mica Parris was fiiiiiiine!!!!
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Hey, I do remember Blue Zone. Don't recall the music though. I'm not really that mad at Lisa, I guess I just OD'ed on "People Hold On" and "Been Around The World", cause those tracks were ALL over the radio and TV back then, especially the latter.
IMO
Any luv for beverley knight?
A friend of mine told me about it - supposedly it's her backed by a jazz trio doing pretty fiery standards and some own stuff. He thought it was rather good.
Carleen Anderson is doing the occasional "featuring" project as far as i know.
As ever,
I definitely had a crush on Jhelisa back in the nineties and I expect her craziness would have just added to the appeal. Used to enjoy Incognitio back in the day and never knew there was an Anderson connection there as well. That's one talented family.
Whatever happened to Cathy Dennis? HA!
Cathy Dennis is currently raking it in as a songwriter for the likes of Kylie (can't get you out of my head etc) and others.
Yasmin... I remember the first time I heard her off that Doctorin' the House track.
Dunno where they went but great TV was made, when on a live Saturday morning Kids TV programme at the height of their fame they had a phone in with Five Star, a kid phoned in and asked why 'they are you so fucking crap' The host, got all huffy and said 'it's not big and it's not clever'
Five Star broke up years ago, and to my knowledge, none of the Pearson kids ever did anything of note afterwards. The o.g. Loose Ends line-up went a similar way - Jane Eugene married an American and retired from music completely, and Steve Nichol had a few drug problems which kept him out of the game for a while (their ex-producer Nick Martinelli did time for supplying coke, too). Carl McIntosh reformed the band with a couple of new vocalists in about '89/'90 but, although the resulting album was good, it didn't do all that much. I think Macca is the only one who's still in the game to any significant degree, but I'm pretty sure that they all do OK off sample uses.
Actually, she and Carl McIntosh did a guest appearance on the first Pete Rock solo joint. The song was called "Take Your Time" or something like that.
One of the brothers from Five Star is performing again and releasing music, Carleen Anderson still has 'substance' problems but guests and does sessions work on the regular, Lisa Stansfield released a total dud LP a couple of years ago but is pretty much the richest woman in the universe and still tours, Yazz married mega-manager Jazz Summers (everyone from Wham to Snow Patrol) and works with his Big Life management company, Mica Paris still tours every now and again but mainly works as a tv and radio presenter, no idea where Caron Wheeler is, Jhelisa has been steadily prolific with her output and releases music all the time. Who'd have thought that Omar would stop re-releasing edits of There's Nothing Like this and finally put something decent out after more than a decade on the skids?
Ah, yes, I remember now - you're exactly right. I do still think, however, that that was pretty much the only thing of any note she's done since leaving Loose Ends. I could be completely wrong about this as well, mind.
but the question remains unanswered... Where is Rick Astley?
If memory serves correctly the ginger follicled pop sensation actually quit the business at the height of his fame deciding that he couldn't look himself in the face if he continued to be involved with the demonic Stock, Aitken & Waterman.
Since then he's had about 10 comeback attempts as a serious indie/acoustic rock artist all of which appear to have failed miserably.
According to his highly enjoyable official website he's planning his latest release as we speak........
http://www.rickastley.co.uk/
The last I heard of him, he was in fact coaching a local Danish pop/rock group that I forgot the name of. He always seemed like a nice kid, but I never dug his voice and music. Back when he was hitting, I wasn't trying to hear all that Stock, Aitken & Waterman mess. Kylie, Jason Donovan, Bananarama, Sophia and so on - yuck!
Add to this that SAW was biting US productions something fierce, i.e. two of Astley's big hits:
"Never Gonna Gonna Give You Up" -> Colonel Abrahams "Trapped"
"Take Me To Your Heart" -> Inner City "Big Fun"
My firend Tashan who was himself a soul singer on Def Jam in the 80's, still tours the UK every so often and just recently did one of those weekender things up north somewhere with Carl McIntosh of Loose Ends.
I was completely freaked when he told me as Loose Ends are probabaly my favorite soul group from the 80's/early 90's. Tashan told me that Carl was keeping busy and working on a new LE lp.
I can only hope and pray.
Caron Wheeler was of course, another one.
Last I heard, she had recorded an entire album's worth of material with Salaam Remi.
They put out one single independantly, "Star" with Biz Markie.
Then, nothing.
I'd kill to hear the rest of that stuff.
That clear vinyl 12" is really, really hard to find, but I scored a copy for my wife before she was my wife and then she wanted to be my wife.
There's also a dancehall version of it (featuring Spragga Benz) that came out on, I believe, a German 7" on the Starburst Riddim. Anyone have an mp3 for me?
I wish the US had "Weekender" type events like the one you just described.
I remember enjoying Tashan's "For The Sake Of Love" CD back in the mid 90's...really good stuff, with a distinctly UK sophisti-soul vibe to it, despite the fact that T was American. Had a noice cover of Squeeze's "Tempted" on it.
SG
Propers to you for even knowing who Tashan is!
It's funny though. I think you gotta be one of the only folks I know who actually liked that album!
I'm biased of course, but even I thought For The Sake of Love was overproduced.
There are a few joints on there I like, but i was always more partial to Tashan's first lp "Chasin' a Dream" (Def Jam '85) and most of "On The Horizon" his 2nd lp, which had a lot of Sam Sever production reminiscent of his work on the Cactus Album.
"Read My Mind" off of the Chasin' a Dream album was my shit in the summer of '86.
Here's something we did a while back in our friend's attic just for kicks...
Grey Skies (bedroom demo)
Whoa, you know Tashan? That man was a fucking god in the UK during the 80's. That whole "Chasin' A Dream" album was an underground classic - "Read My Mind", "Got The Right Attitude" and "Thank You Father" are
His later shit, like "For The Sake Of Love" and "Love Is Forever" is dope as well. I remember seeing him perform Whodini's "Yours For The Night" with Bambaataa at the Hacienda in Manchester in about 1984, and he was part of a Def Jam soul package tour which played a fantastic show in Manchester a year or so later with Alyson Williams, Oran "Juice" Jones and Chuck Stanley. Glad to hear he's still out there doing it - I'll keep an eye open for him over here in future, because I'd love to see him perform again.
Tashan was always one of my biggest inspirations. Poughkeepsie boy makes good.
I remember just before he left to start touring with Whodini in the early 80's, he did a high school talent show and performed "Yours For a Night" and "Got The Right Attitude". Killed it!
(A little trivia... he's also the guy singing on the hook for the Fat Boy's "Can You Feel It")
But as much critical acclaim as he got - and he did get a lot - nobody paid him any mind here in the states.
So he moved to England for a bit and did his third album there with the London Symphony Orchestra.
We've done a lot of pretty good stuff over the years and never did anything with it, but I think at least one or two songs should end up making the album I'm doing for Antidote.
I've got a great concert video he did here in PK in the early 90's and performed with a great band, full horn section, etc. It was like a Def Jam Soul reuinion cause you know he brought out Alyson, "Juice" and Chuck on stage with him.