High
fashion
High fashion is a band that a broader audience of music listeners
don't know much about despite their major hit "Feelin' lucky
lately" back in 82. Among Petrus' and Malavasi's achievements
they place them self in the middle when it comes to recognition.
One reason was that they only released two albums and were
more or less always somewhat in the shades of the better known
acts of Change and B. B. & Q band that was the number
one and two of the Little macho empire, at least from a commercial
point of view. Musically though, High fashion did receive
some good material from the main writers of Malavasi, Romani
and a few Americans and could compete well with the two big
ones.
The
name of the band associated to the fashion business was not
something Petrus was behind though. Instead it was Mic Murphy,
the co-runner of Petrus' Little Macho publishing office in
New York, that came up with the name High fashion. Mic was
very familiar with the NYC music scene and certainly did know
what kind of groovy name a brand new band should have. Murphy
is of course best known for being the road manager of the
funk band Kleeer before he met Petrus and the co-founder of
synth funk band The System in 82.
At
the start the band contained three members, Eric McClinton,
Meli'sa Morgan and Alyson Williams, all vocalists that were
picked and employed by Petrus in New York. All of the hand
picked band members had an interesting musical background.
Eric had earlier during the 70s been a member of Motown band
"The Vikings" and worked as a vocalist with "The
Mike Theodore orchestra" in 79 and Meli'sa as a vocalist
on different "Kleeer" albums and on "A shade
of love's" funky album in 82. Alyson, a daughter of the
Jazz bandleader and trumpet player Bobby Booker, had done
some background work as vocalist on several albums by the
awesome band "Unlimited touch" before joining the
group. The name clearly showed what Petrus was looking for.
He wanted a classy and tasteful music presented in a luxurious
package, but did he succeed with his intentions?
Production
procedures
Once
again, Petrus used a mix of Italian and American musicians,
both insiders and outsiders, to write, produce and play the
music, and then brought in the vocalists when it all was set.
Although the band have to be considered as a mix of a studio
concept and an ordinary band, after all, the singers never
played any instruments or wrote any music (lyrics only), High
fashion were more of a band than Change in 80 and 81 for example.
The vocalists were also actually named on the cover as a band
and depicted on the same as well. This way of putting a new
band together was typical for Petrus and worked well, so why
stop now.
Petrus
had also an interesting way of dealing with the songs written
for his bands. He told his staff of writers, musicians and
producers to do their thing, brought in the vocalist to finish
the job but didn't say a word to them on which album the songs
were going to end up. That was something they later heard
on the radio, only the core Italians did know. That's why
the similarities between the albums of B. B. & Q. band,
High fashion and Change in 81-83 for example were so indisputably
obvious. Even though Petrus had some thoughts about giving
each band a personal profile it was hard to detect anything
else than vague difference between them. Generally High fashion
and B. B. & Q band had a more funky style than Change,
but once again, it was most often hard to tell. The tracks
of all the albums a specific could easily have been switched
between them and nobody would have never noticed.
A
descent start
High
fashion released their first album on Capitol in 82 titled
"Feelin' lucky" and presented a smooth and classy style of
R&B mixed with a distinct europop and rock flavor. The
name of the group really matched well with their very European
sound on most tracks. High fashion's debut stood out from
the rest of the Petrus/Malavasis productions that year, non
of them had that pop and rock sound in the same extent with
the exception of the obscure but highly interesting album
of Zinc. High fashion's album did indeed include two very
typical and classic examples of Little macho productions,
the joyful and slick disco influenced "Feelin' lucky
lately" and the catchy and funky Kashif penned "Hold
on". Both tracks were very similar to each other and
with many tracks from Change and B. B. & Q. band's albums
as well. As already mentioned, the common procedure was for
Petrus to collect all the produced songs among his handful
writers and then in the last minute decide which track to
be placed on which album, that's why much of the his artist
sounded the same, the "Petrus sound". This pattern
was repeated over and over again with a splendid result!
"Feelin' lucky lately" immediately became a considerable
hit and reached #32 on Billboards R&B chart. The rest of the
album, with its soft europop sound mixed with some more groove
oriented refrains, was pending from good to decent and didn't
reach the same class as the two mentioned. Most noticeable
was the mid-tempo track "I want to be your everything".
The
uprising star of Kashif made a short guestplay and wrote or
co-wrote three tracks and co-produced three others. As always,
the excellent composer Romani made an extensive contribution
with three co-written tracks and among them the main hit of
"Feelin' lucky lately". The "old warrior"
Fonzi Thornton, used on earlier Petrus productions as well
as singer on several Chic albums, wrote the lyrics of three
tracks. The producers were already known from Change, Petrus
and Malavisi. Petrus, the more business oriented person didn't
actually produce, that was the brilliant Malavasi's and Romani's
big thing. A bad habit of Petrus sometimes was to take the
credits of musicians, many times promised to be credited as
producers of the albums, a behavior that naturally made people
less eager to work with him to put it mildly. Both Dennis
Coffey, Mike Theodore and Kashif experienced that on the first
album of High Fashion on which they were credited as assistant
producers.
Their
last release?
In
1983 it was time to release their second album, "Make up your
mind". Once again Capitol records was the label. The set turned
out to be a pure and solid record even though it wasn't very
innovative. By now Meli'sa Morgan had left the group for a
successful solo career and were replaced by Jazz vocalist
Marcella Allen that had appeared on "Lonnie Liston Smith's"
Jazz album "Love is the answer" in 80 among others.
Petrus and Malavasi produced the record once again. Petrus
actually co-wrote one track, a rare thing for sure, as it
only happened at very few occasions. Otherwise it was Malavasi's
time to show his talent once again as he wrote four tracks
in favor of Romani that wrote none. Timmy Allen from Change
also wrote two tracks and the sensual female singer Tawatha
Agee from Mtume wrote the lyrics of one track. Notable is
that Petrus decided to use a very limited amount of musicians
including all the band members of B. B. & Q. band when
the album was recorded. This could be explained by his grooving
financial problems that kept bugging his mind.
The
album was a very solid one with virtually no bad tracks at
all and with a very high general standard. It also was a significantly
harder, more funk inspired record compared to the debut without
losing the easy-listning and smooth feeling. The album was
maybe a little bit repetitive and did not show any spectacular
moves when it comes to the musical part but with such a great
vocalist achievements it did present a very good mix of dance
music.
The
most noticeable tracks were the powerful and speedy "Make
up your mind", "Love" and "Pump on the pipe" with a lot of
groove in addition to the marvellous midtempo track "A little
bit more time" and the worthy ballad "Just a little bit
more love. Williams, with her characteristic high pitch strong
voice and MacClinton with his rough, hard working and inspiring
voice all-together turned out to be an innovative combination
that made the album complete. This is one of the better albums
in 83, although it wasn't appreciated when it comes to the
commercial side, as it didn't sell very well. The listeners
who didn't buy it missed a good, solid and funky album including
some memorable tracks well worth the money.
According
to the former member of Change, Jeff Bova, High fashion started
to work on a third album, but the idea was abounded before
it turned to reality and High fashion split up. Rumor has
it though; that High fashion did release a 12" in 84
or 85 but that has not yet been confirmed. In 86 however,
a group called High fashion released a 12" titled "You
make me feel so good" on the small label called High
fashion records. Nothing proves however that this is the same
group especially as none of the songwriters, producers or
even the voices on the record can be recognized from earlier
productions.
After
math
After
the end of the group Meli'sa went on doing a quite good solo
career with her biggest hit "Fools paradise" released in 85.
On her album "Good love" in 87she did a classic duet with
Kashif that also produced the album. Meli'sa still works with
music today. Alyson Williams also went on doing a solo career
producing a great ballad "Just call my name" from her debut
LP in 89. She also sung as a background singer on Fat boys
second album in 85. At the same year as High fashion released
their final album Eric McClinton also participated as background
singer on the albums of "Six million times" by B.
B. & Q. band and "This is your time" by Change.
He was also the lead singer of the two rare studio creations
of Ze-brass (83) and Deep (85), but then he seems to have
disappeard from the scene. Marcela Allen later did some work
as vocalist on an experimental rock album in 83 and on a rap
album in 92.
Reissues
Besides
the original albums on Capitol both albums have been released
on CD. The first time that happened was on the 9th of February
1999 when both albums were released on the Japanese label
Vivid sound. The work of digitally remaster the original tape
is superbly done with an excellent sound but as it was an
imported CD the price was rather high. The first album is
not for sail anymore but the second one is still in print.
On the 23rd of August 2004 EMI Holland released the first
album on CD as a part of their newly created "Masters Of Funk
& Soul" series. You can't find that CD on Amazon US, but on
Amazon
UK, Amazon
Germany (best price) and Amazon
France
On
the 15th of November 2005 the Italian label Fonte records
released a box of five CD's including both albums by High
fashion together with the first
three albums by B. B. & Q band. More info about this box
and the additional four exclusive boxes in the series can
be found here
(Patrik
Andersson)
Discography
of High fashion
Please click on the covers below to see a complete list of
songs from each record.
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Album
cover
(if available)
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Title,
year & format
(if
available)
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1982
(LP & CD)
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1983
(LP & CD)
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All original release years
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Copyright
© 1999-2020
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