Singing Melody cut his first tune Tie Me in 1987 at King Tubby’s (without the great man’s permission!) before hitting big with a cover of the R&B group Surface‘s Shower Me With Your Love. His US influenced, powerfully delivered style made him both a successful solo artist and a key member of the harmony quartet L.U.S.T formed in 1997 with Lukie D, Thrilla U and Tony Curtis. In February, Singing Melody was in London promoting his sixth album ‘They Call Me Mr Melody’ released via his own SHEM Music label and distributed by VP Records. Angus Taylor had a chat with him a few days after L.U.S.T.’s Valentine’s concert at Brixton Academy with Freddie McGregor and John Holt.
It’s been many years since you last released a solo album. Why did you decide at this point, that it was time to step forward?
If you’ve been following my career for some while you can realise that whenever I come with a song it’s always on time. I’m not one of those artists decided to rush through music and just record a lot of stuff and put it out, so that before you reach 40 you have 30 albums. I take my time with music because I think music needs to grow with people. So it came right on time. I was lucky to catch the 50th anniversary of reggae. Some of the reviews were associating this album with that timing, so I was very pleased with that.
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