R.I.P. Lew Kirton (1948 - 22 Jan 2022)

What a devastating start to 2022 for friends and family of so many soul music related artists and their fans. It pains me to announce yet another departure of an artist much loved by the UK Northern and Modern Soul scene in particular. Lew Kirton, one time lead singer with The Invitations, has died. The news was passed to me by Gary Van Den Bussche after it being posted on Lew's facebook page yesterday.

Lew was originally from Barbados and went by the name Jiggs Kirton. In 1967 he emigrated to Canada and by 1969 he was touring with Sam & Dave as their drummer.  He joined The Invitations in 1972 (who were formed around 1965 and had released a handful of singles on various labels without success before Kirton joined them) replacing Herman Colefield as their lead singer who in turn had replaced Roger Jolly who sang lead on their Dynovoice recordings. A couple of their early singles on Dynovoice were big on the UK rare soul scene i.e. "What's Wrong With Me Baby" and "Skiing In The Snow".

Their biggest success came in 1973 with the single "They Say The Girl's Crazy" b/w "For Your Precious Love" (The Impressions song) on Silver Blue records which reached #110 pop and #17 R&B and has been a favourite tune on the modern soul scene for decades. They followed it with "Living Together Is Keeping Us Apart" (#79 R&B and previously an album track for Clarence Reid aka Blowfly) and finally, as far as chart success is concerned at least, "Look On The Good Side" (#43 R&B).  They released one other single on Silver Blue ("Let's Love (And Find Together)") which failed to chart.

By 1977 Silver Blue had been acquired by TK and Lew Kirton had gone solo releasing his first single, a funky disco tune "Hold On To What You Got", on Verdith in 1976 as Lew Jiggs Kirton. The follow up on TK subsidiary Marlin "Do What You Want, Be Who You Are" is a stunning (Hall & Oates written and recorded (1976) and also recorded by The Dramatics) deep soul ballad which entered the lower reaches of the R&B chart (#94) in 1977 which still stands up today flipped with the mid tempo "Come On With It" (on which he sounds very like Jimmy Ruffin to my ears?). 

I guess due to the success of this single he was switched to the Alston label where he recorded "New York City" (another great deep soul ballad) followed by "Heaven In The Afternoon" which became iconic on the UK modern and northern soul scenes but neither made a dent on the R&B chart. In 1979 he appeared on B. Baker Chocolate Co.'s self-titled album as featured vocalist on "It's Where You're Coming From".

An album "Just Arrived" followed on Alston in 1980 which spawned the next single "Island Girl" released in 1981. "Something Special" from the album was another big tune of his on the modern soul circuit.

By 1983 he moved to Believe In A Dream where he released four singles and another album "Talk To Me" all in 1983 with two of the singles both charting R&B ("Talk To Me" (#31) and "Don't Give Up Your Dream (Hang On In There)" (#71).  However, another of the singles ("Just Can't Get Enough") got a UK release and peaked at #90 on UK pop chart. After this his output declined and he released only a few singles but came back with two albums on Tweedside, "Forever" in 2005 and "So Into You" in 2010.

Below is a Spotify playlist of 25 of his best tunes along with a few that are not available on Spotify from YouTube.