We proudly bring you, here on You-Tube, the premiere of a totally brand new song, from our brand new album, "Soul Steppers" - released in late February 2009. A delectable new album of "Modern-Room" style Northern Soul. Classic retro soul, owing more homage to Gamble and Huff and the sound of Philadelphia and the mid 1970s rhythms, than to the usual Sixties style. Midtempo and Uptempo soulful sizzlers to warm the embers of your heart, and take your feet totally out of control. Just as the legendary Blackpool Mecca building gets pulled down, the "Soul Steppers" album shows that they can pull down the building but they can never take away our music. And in this recession, in times of darkness and uncertainty, as the opening track gloriously proclaims - "I know there's better times ahead for us". Onward to a brighter day. Music can lift us and make us forget what the world has to throw at us, and this album is designed to do just that. The new album has songs by Rosetta Hightower, Noel McKoy, Odette Adams, Tahira Jumah, Jay Harvey, Pearly Gates, The Flirtations, Janine Johnson, Michael Lloyd Pinq, Kitty Corbin, Judy Duff, The Concentrations, Jimmy James, and a few major surprises. Here, for the first time in eighteen long months, the scintillating beautiful Ebony Alleyne returns to the studios, with "In My Own Defence", and we held up the entire album to get this beautiful song recorded. All of Ebony's growing fanbase were delighted by her much acclaimed album, "Never Look Back", on Expansion Records. It was a whole glorious brand new day for Ebony. Her wonderful album finally came out on Expansion, 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 "real" smooth sophisticated soul music, with a huge orchestra (sixty strings, thirty brass), with a Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick flavour overall, and this was well before Nora Jones, Joss Stone, Corinne Bailey Rae, and most particularly Amy Winehouse, all hit 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. Then, five 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 two years ago, we have cut five further songs, three for "Northern Soul 2007" and one for "Disco 2008", and now, after an eighteen month gap, while she studied for her law degree, this fantastic new song, "In My Own Defence". Ebony and I co-wrote this fabulous uplifting song with my long time producing partner Clive Scott. And the new album, for the first time, is being distributed by Wienerworld, who have put out all our Northern Soul DVDs, and this time we look certain to get it sold in all the remaining major record shops around the country. And remember the whole theme of this special album - "I know there's better times ahead for us".
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