Alive With Soul: A Tribute To David Gest and Billy Paul Tour, York Barbican, July 1

DAVID Gest made an appearance at his tribute show. On screen at the start, in an interview wherein he talked of his love of soul music and his appreciation of the warmth shown to him in his adopted home of Britain. “You can make people laugh at you, you can make people laugh with you,” said the late American music producer and reality TV celebrity of his credo for having fun in life.

David had brought three such soul revues to his favourite city of York and had drawn up the bill for 24 tour dates this summer when he died on April 12. Co-producer Imad Handi took up the tour mantle with Freda Payne in the Gest role as compere.

She was the first of many to tell stories of her friend of 43 years after kicking off the soul retrospective with Band Of Gold. Melba Moore’s This Is It and Fern Kinney’s Together We Are Beautiful were sung with grace, and in between Junior Giscombe was a ball of London energy.

The Tymes’ heavenly voices and sleek dance steps in You Little Trustmaker and Miss Grace were vintage soul at its best; Rose Royce’s Gwen Dickey was overcome with tears at the finale to Wishing On A Star, but then took us all to the Carwash, still such a hot groove.

The Stylistics’ Russell Thompkins Jr, elegant, gentlemanly and sweet of voice, thanked David for reviving his career.

It had been a marvellous, moving first half. Could the second surpass it? Ultimately no, although The Tymes’ tribute to Billy Paul with Me And Mrs Jones was glorious and Deniece Williams’s spectacular Free, her duet of Too Much Too Little, Too Late with Thompkins and rallying call of Let’s Hear It For The Boys were magnificent. She would have made the ideal finale.

Instead, Dina Carroll’s Nineties’ British soul numbers and Peabo Bryson’s Disney songs couldn’t match what had gone before.

Charles Hutchinson