Jamie Jones is the founder of 90s interracial group All-4-One who had a run of seven Billboard chart entries between 1994-96. He was lead singer and main songwriter. In 2004 he branched out to release his debut solo album "Illuminate".
On 9 Jul 2021 he released an updated, contemporary version of Bobby Hebb's 1966 classic "Sunny" which is from a forthcoming EP.
Upon checking, I was quite surprised to learn that Hebb wasn't actually the first to record the song which he wrote as a tribute to his brother who was murdered six months before. It was recorded first by a Japanese artist Mieko Hirota (aka Miko) in Oct 1965, whilst Hebb's version wasn't released until April 1966. Mieko Hirota's studio version is sung as a jazz ballad but there is also another live version which starts off slow but picks up tempo around 2 mins into a cool jazz / Northern Soul dancer (the Mods would love this!). The YT poster (MrPJSoul) states that it is from a rare reel-to-reel tape titled "Ah! Soul...Introducing Miko On Stage" which is not dated, but could be around 1969 based on the cat. no.?
There are literally hundreds of recorded versions of this song but sadly probably one of the best know versions, other than Hebb's, is Boney M's 1976 disco version which was a #3 UK hit. Hebb's reached #12 in the UK in 1966. A previously unreleased version by Marvin Gaye from 1966 was posthumously released on a 1990 compilation "The Marvin Gaye Collection" and James Brown featuring Marva Whitney did a nice jazzy version in 1968 on "This Is James Brown" which wasn't released in the US.
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| Rating: | 8 |
| Genre/Style: | Neo Soul |
| Format: | Single |
| Media: | Digital |
| Label: | Self Released |
| Cat No: | None |
| Year: | 09/07/2021 |
| Key/BPM: | 8A/100 |
| Value: | £1 |
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