Hello and welcome to my new column on the Mi-Soul website!
This concept was dreamed-up by the lady behind our website, the indefatigable Andrea Britton! She never runs out of energy and always looks happy!
‘The Lost Letter’ is all about the forgotten tunes, the forgotten artists. It’s all about the tunes you love but never knew who they were by! Does that happen to you? It happens to so many people, that’s why Shazam was created! Hold your phone up next to the speaker and Shazam will tell you what it is, but not even Shazam can identify everything! Why? Because there is TOO MUCH!
Too many songs! Too many acts! There is altogether too much! Why? Because everybody wants to be a star! And, now that you no longer need to be signed to a record company or even go into a recording studio to make music, there are millions of ‘bedroom’ music acts. No wonder tunes get lost!
In the media industry, we cruelly refer to some people as ‘one-hit wonders’. These people write hundreds of songs, some of them good but only ONE really connects with the audience! ‘One-Hit Wonder’ is an unfair moniker but there are ten times as many ‘no-hit wonders’. As I say, there are too many acts and too many tunes!
Up until recently, Nu Shooz were considered a one-hit wonder. It definitely didn’t bother us. We’ve loved ‘I Can’t Wait’ since 1986. That’s 31 years, people! For some, an entire lifetime! Many don’t even know this track but, for us on the black music scene, this is a bona fide 80s classic! One of the tunes that defined the eighties! And, for us, Nu Shooz were a one-hit wonder. A lost act! The kind of act media create ‘Where Are They Now?’ features for!
In fact, Nu Shooz are NOT one-hit wonders! They’ve released SEVEN albums but, for one reason or another, much of their music has been lost. Or ignored.
And then, the other day, on Mark ‘Deadly’ Smedley’s show, I hear a brand new and very wonderful Nu Shooz song entitled ‘Real Thing’ mixed by Eric Kupper and – bang – Nu Shooz are back!
So, the truth is, nothing is ‘lost’, there is just too much! If we tried to follow everyone’s career and listen to everything, we’d never get any sleep!
More ‘lost letters’ next time round!