Here is my fabulous protege, Ebony Alleyne, performing a song which I wrote with her as a tribute to Blackpool Mecca in the mid 1970s, and all those early New York funky disco records like "Dreaming A Dream" and "Foxy Lady". All of Ebony's growing fanbase were delighted by her much acclaimed album, "Never Look Back", on Expansion Records. It's a whole glorious brand new day for Ebony. Her wonderful album finally came out after she was first signed to a major label in 2002. I was brought in to produce her entire album. We did an magnificent album of generic live smooth sophisticated soul music, with a huge orchestra, with a Burt Bacharach / Dionne Warwick flavour overall. This was well before Nora Jones, Joss Stone, Corinne Bailey Rae, and most particularly Amy Winehouse, all had hits with basically the same thing. The Ebony album was utterly utterly wonderful, and I was so proud of it. It took a year and a half to make, and the legendary head of A&R, Muff Winwood, oversaw it personally. "Walk Away And Never Look Back", was the first song we recorded. We introduced her to the soul scene by reactivating the old classic Okeh label, owned by Sony, and pressing up tiny limited editions of three all different singles on the Okeh label on seven inch vinyl. Everything looked wonderful and rosy, but suddenly Ebony was set free without a record being released. Now years later, along with brand new 2007 material, justice finally got served, and the world got to hear what I consider to be my finest hour musically. After releasing her album, we have cut four further songs, three for "Northern Soul 2007" and one for "Disco 2008". On September 3rd 2007, we finally released "Northern Soul 2007". The album consisted of twenty four brand new 2007 songs by soul and disco legends, including Leee John, Gee Morris, The Flirtations, Voices With Soul, Ebony Alleyne, Noel McKoy, and many more. Each song has an accompanying video of the artist basically performing it the studio and outside locations. The work that we have all put into this project is quite staggering, and I hope it will break down the barriers between the older Northern Soul stalwarts and a new generation who need younger acts who still produce the same vibe we all witnessed forty years ago for Motown's glory years. Give new Northern Soul a chance this time.
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Music