Well this was a surprise. You may be thinking, as I did, why is this
being released now? So, I did some digging and contacted the company
behind it which is run by (James) McKinley Horton. It transpires that he manages Harold
Melvin's estate with Melvin's wife Olivia and they are making a
documentary about Harold Melvin's life called "To Be True". This documentary
is motivated by the death of Melvin's daughter Trudy last year who had
worked for twenty three years keeping her father's legacy alive. The single
is being released to promote the documentary which is nearing
completion. You can view a trailer for it here.
"Pray Before You Start Your Day" was released on 6 Jul 2021. It was originally written in 1996 by Melvin and Horton and was due for
release but Melvin had a massive stoke shortly afterwards and died in 1997,
aged 57, and it was never released. Three mixes have been produced
by McKinley Horton, Bert Price, Cory 'Fortune West' Wilson and George
Short. Mix 1 features Horton's son Izaiah James on a more contemporary
version, whilst Mix 2 is the original vocals with a new production featuring
Harold Melvin on the second verse and Dwight 'Blackie' Johnson with Anthony
Quarterman. McKinley also sent me a third contemporary mix which isn't
commercially available.
McKinley Horton played keyboards on a couple of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes albums (their first two of the 80s: "The Blue Album" and "All Things
Happen In Time") under the moniker Mickie Horton and also co-wrote six of
the eight tracks on their next album "Talk It Up (Tell Everybody)" in 1984.
He became a member of Cashmere who had a few hits between 1983-85, four
of them reaching the UK pop charts, the biggest being "Can I" which they
performed on Top Of The Pops in 1985 as it reached #29 and spent 8 weeks
on the chart.
Cashmere evolved from Chicago's Heaven & Earth with members Dwight Duke
and Keith Seward being joined by Horton and drummer Daryl
Burgee. Heaven & Earth have links to The Soul Majestics as the lead singer Dean
Williams joined them around 1978. The Soul Majestics released only two known
singles but their first is a sweet soul/lowrider classic "I Done Told You Baby"
Horton also wrote Eugene Wilde's (aka Ronald Broomfield one of Miami's
talented Broomfield family) 1984 hit "Gotta Get You Home Tonight" and worked
on Vanessa William's 'Dreamin' in 1988. He has also worked with Jimmy 'Jam'
Harris & Terry Lewis.
Click icons below for further information or to connect with the
artist.
Please note this is a draft video which is not complete
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