What a surprise and a revelation all in one. UK singer Heather Haywood was one of the 7 members in the early 80s funk band The Cool Notes. The other singer Lorraine McIntosh you might recognise from Bomb the Bass‘ Don’t Make Me Wait. They originally started out as a roots reggae band releasing their debut single After Tonight, but then adopted a more soulful poppy feel with their 2nd single Tune. The b-side was the delightful gem You Are What You Are. Interestingly they covered The Stylistics 1971 classic People Make the World Go Round in 1982. Trivia: Several cover versions were infamously sampled by DJ Shadow for Blackalicious’ Swan Lake in 1994.
The Cool Notes achieved chart success in the mid 80s with their fantastic Spend the Night and the super feel good number In Your Car. Their song Wanna Dance unfortunately never got a major release and is a rarity and usually fetches into 3 figures. Heather had left the band by the time they had hooked up with Peter Waterman (of Stock, Aitken & Waterman) and his uber pop production team in 1991, where they only managed to get one track out into the world, the very dated Make This A Special Night.
Jump forward to 2017 and Heather is approached by French lads at Boogie80. Producer Nickee B will feature her on the track Stronger from his forthcoming album. Though in the meantime they dropped a ripper of a 7″ single, Party Tonight/Give It Up. It was available on Bandcamp but 500copies sold out today after only a week on sale. Can currently be found on Discogs for a decent price. Sure to be a hugely collectable release as both tunes are equally magnificent. Pure 80s funk delights. Extremely authentic of the period, but yet still sounding contemporary. Heather sounds amazing and lifts the production beyond what most singers are capable of in the current boogie funk landscape. Its uncanny and mesmerising.
