Brian Power's previous single prior to the great cover of Sounds Of
Blackness' 'Optimistic' is this collaboration with Hil St. Soul and Richard
Burton. Whilst it was originally released last September, it's just
had a DJ Spen Remix for 2021, available from 18 Mar 2021.
It's currently sitting at #4 on Traxsource Soul / Funk / Disco chart.
DTR Project is an alias for DJ Rae (vocalist), Danism (Dan Liquid and Dan Gresham), Train (UK) who released this soulful house track back in 2019. It gets a fresh mix for 2021 by Danny Kravit.
Hot on the heels of her last single 'Good Love', which is riding high at the top of the Traxsource
Soul/Funk/Disco chart, is another from Kelli Sae, this time in collaboration
with Moon Rocket. It's available from Traxsource now but will be on general
release on 18 Mar 2021.
This track was released last year (2 Mar 2020) but has just had a 'Joey
Negro (Dave Lee) Live & Direct Extended Mix' released
on a compilation
'Soulful Deep & Dope 2021'
by Reel People Music on 9 Mar 2021.
It doesn't seem to be available to buy yet on Amazon but is available from Traxsource.
Here's both versions.
The Vision feat. Andreya Triana - Mountains (Joey Negro Live And Direct Extended Mix)
D'Y-Ann Marie Mathis aka Diane Hogandated Stevie Wonder for 2 years whilst she was at college. She joined The Debonaires as lead singer (aged 15) after they recorded their first single, which to my calculation would make her 70/71 this year.
The Debonaires recorded
four singles on Golden World followed by two on Solid Hit. She also released a solo single on Capitol in 1969 as Diane Hogans.
In the seventies, she was on the road with The Undisputed Truth and various other Detroit groups.
The Debonaires were a young girl group from Detroit who started out as a trio Elsie Baker, Dorothy Garland and Joyce Vincent. Diane Hogan joined after the first single.
Discogs states
that the original members were Thelma Hopkins, Joyce Vincent, Diane
Hogans and Elsie Baker, however an article on
SoulfulDetroit
says it was Dorothy Garland, Joyce Vincent, Diane Hogan and Elsie Baker
i.e Dorothy Garland not Thelma Hopkins.
Thelma (Telma) Hopkins became an actress in the late 70s after she had been a member of Tony Orlando's Dawn. There are several articles about her on
the net and none of them menton her being in The Debonaires so I tend to
defer to the Soulful Detroit account.
Joyce Vincent was later known as Joyce Vincent Wilson and joined Tony Orlando's
Dawn at the same time as Telma Hopkins around 1970/71. Prior to this Dawn were actually two sessions singers, but Orlando needed to form a group to tour after the success of a couple of singles. It is also claimed that she was chosen to replace
Mary Wilson in The Supremes but the goup was disbanded by Motown as no
original members remained with the group, but she did later perform with
FLOS
(Former Ladies Of The Supremes).
I can't find any info on Dorothy Garland as have to plough through dozens of pages referring ot Judy Garland's character in Wizard Of Oz! Neither can I find anything on Elsie Baker.
A new single from Stacii Adams (The Boss Of The Blues) is a deep neo
southern soul ballad. It was released on 25 Feb 2021 but curioulsy
it doesn't feature on his new (debut?) album
'The Baggage Claim'
released 1 Mar 2021.
From a new album 'Collage' released 10 Mar 2021. This track samples Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Feat. Sharon Paige
'You Know Make Me Feel So Good' from their 1975 'Wake Up Everybody' album.
The album is predomnantly R&B/hip-hop, however, another decent track is 'Hold Up' which samples Destiny's Child - 'Girl'. Other tracks sample Kanye West ('Beat 5' and 'Beat 6'), Lauryn Hill 'To Zion', N.E.R.D 'Tape You' (outro loop) and F.O. (Frank Ocean) 'We All Try'.
The album is probably of not much interest to soul people, but you can listen to it here.
I've already posted Kim Tavar's debut album on
27 Feb 2021, but at that time it was only available on BandCamp. It is now available
on Amazon from 8 Mar 2021 and has been posted on YouTube.
A new album from Joanna Law released 8 Mar 2021. She is the sister of
Simon Law ('The Funky Ginger') who was a member of Soul II Soul who has
been releasing music since 1988 and had a minor chart hit in 1990 with a
cover of Roberta Flacks' First Time Ever' which reached #67 on UK pop
chart.
It's a difficult album to categorise as it contains ambient, jazz, jazz
funk, carribean and breakbeats similar to what Soul II Soul were doing
back in the day.
I believe that many (if not most) of the tracks were
originally recorded (or have been re-recorded) in her earlier days e.g.
'First Time Ever' (1990) and 'Song For Theo' (2001), 'Celebrate Love'
(1992), 'Love Is Not Enough' (1990), 'You're Mine' (1992), 'Warm
Love' (1992), 'Skin On Skin' (1994).
The album has 21 tracks, but many are remixes (i.e 3 mixes each of 'Love
Is Not Enough', 'Warm Love', 'First Time Ever' and 2 of 'Song for Theo'),
So essentially there are only 14 tracks with 7 remixes, but album price is still only £7.49.
'Immediate' tracks are 'Skin On Skin', 'First Time Ever', 'Song For Theo', but I've gone for the 'obvious' track to feature, 'First Time Ever (Extended Mix)'.
