Allsoulandfunk.blogspot.com Website Review

No amount is too big or too small. Any donation is appreciated. 10 December 1957, London, England. This producer, mixer, composer and keyboard wizard was one of the UK dance music scene’s first crossover successes. He first worked in a hi-fi shop and developed an interest in electronics in his te*ns. Hardcastle made his recording debut in 1981 on ‘Don’t Depend On Me’, a single by UK soul act Direct Drive. He subsequently formed First Light with vocalist Derek Green, with whom he had worked on the Direct Drive sessions. First Light’s output included a deplorable cover version of America’s ‘A Horse With No Name’. Hardcastle then formed his own Total Contral Records label and enjoyed two number 1 dance hits in 1984 with UK, and became a big club hit in America on the Profile Records label. Hardcastle’s big breakthrough came with the following year’s ‘19’, a record about the Vietnam conflict utilising samples of spoken news reports. The single went to number 1 in 13 countries, including his native England, and received the Ivor Novello award for The Bestselling Single Of 1985. The follow-up, ‘Just For The Money’, was based on the Great Train Robbery and boasted the voices of Bob Hoskins and Sir Laurence Olivier. Further singles were progressively less successful before he scored with ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag’ under the pseudonym Silent Underdog. He also wrote the Top Of The Pops theme, ‘The Wizard’, in 1986, before switching to production for young funk band LW5, providing remixes for anyone from Third World to Ian Dury. Another production credit was the last ever Phil Lynott single, coincidentally called ‘Ninete*n’. Other engagements came with Carol Kenyon (previously vocalist on Heaven 17’s ‘Te*ptation’) most notably on the 1986 Top 10 hit ‘Don’t Waste My Time’. Hardcastle subsequently ‘retired’ to his Esse* home studio, where he continues to release records under pseudonyms such as the Deff