Just a quickie with... Shalamar’s Jeffrey Daniels, the man with the disco moves.

Stand by for A Night To Remember tonight when Shalamar’s Jeffrey Daniel, Howard Hewett, and Carolyn Griffey perform their disco favourites in York. CHARLES HUTCHINSON has a word with Jeffrey, now big in Japan.


What are you up to at present, Jeffrey?
“I’m making an album, a solo album, and I’ve been recording it in Japan because this is where I live now. I’ve lived here since the late 1980s as most of the work I was getting was here and I’ve settled well.

“I haven’t made an album for 20 years: I last did a burp and a fart of album, called Skinny Boy, when the mood before the album was healthy, but little did I know that the label was being shafted.

“But now I’ve done some living I do feel ready to do my own songs. It’s very soul and R&B based and from there it extends to dance and hip-hop.

“I’m working with Lord Ekomy [Ndong]. I discovered him in Gabon, in Africa, in 2003 when I spent three months there. He’s the number one contemporary artist there. You’ve got to hear his rhythms.”

What will the album be called?
“It’s called Inevitable because it’s inevitable that I would come full circle, and I like to think that certain things will be inevitable...”

...Such as the return of Shalamar?
“Yes, it’s inevitable that Shalamar would get together again. It’s like this: when we get certain calls, the right calls, then we do it.

“I’m in Japan, between Tokyo and Osaka; Howard is in Los Angeles; Carolyn is in Memphis, Tennessee, and it’s not easy for us to come together, but for this tour, we got the call and we thought, ‘Hey, great’, as by then I’d be totally out of the studio.

“It’s always a pleasure for me to get back on stage and do those Shalamar songs that launched my career – and sometimes the audience sings louder than us.”

What is the abiding appeal of Shalamar’s soul music?
“The feel-good thing: making you feel good about yourself, and not just us but everyone singing along. We’ve had the violence, the people in jail and the grim faces of hip-hop singers, and knife attacks in London, and you think, ‘Hey, let’s try and do something positive’.

“If I was listening to Barry White for 24 hours in my ear, I’d want to make love, but now young people fill their ears with very aggressive music.

“The people bragging about being on the corner selling drugs are now making records, where they talk about the gangs and thugs and stories of guts and glory, but you couldn’t imagine that in our day. I mean, come on.

“We were a band that helped to bring the world together more physically with our music.”

• Shalamar, Kenny Thomas and Steve Brookstein, Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 7.45pm. Tickets: £28.50 on 0844 847 2322 or grandoperahouseyork.org.uk