Spandau Ballet

Recently, the band have managed to put their differences behind them and a reunion tour has been mentioned; however, the success of Martin Kemp's acting career means that plans remain on hold. There has also been mention of a probable chance that SWV will band together once again to record a reunion album, which has been slated to come out sometime in 2004. The three non-Kemp members toured as a trio, but as Gary Kemp owned the rights to the name of Spandau Ballet, they had to go under the less-than-catchy moniker of 'Hadley, Keeble and Norman, ex-Spandau Ballet'. The latest news regarding SWV is that Johnson has married a football player recently. As a result, Hadley in particular was left very short of money, and he ended up entertaining troops and taking part in the reality show Reborn in the USA. Her solo debut, Hot Coko, came out in 1999. In the 1990s, Hadley, Keeble and Norman launched a failed court case against Gary Kemp for a share of royalties which they claimed they were due. SWV disbanded in 1998 and Gamble moved on to continue with a solo career.

Gary Kemp did a little more acting, appearing in a supporting role in the Kevin Costner hit The Bodyguard, and in 1996 released a critically praised solo album, Little Bruises. Two years later, their previous successes were recalled on their Greatest Hits compilation. Martin Kemp went on to land an acting role in the UK soap opera Eastenders, while Tony Hadley floundered trying to establish a solo career. Diddy" Combs. The album bombed and Spandau Ballet — from whom Gary Kemp was already feeling estranged — split up for good. The album was followed by Release Some Tension in 1997, which features a bevy of rappers guest appearing including Lil' Kim, Missy Elliott, and Sean "P. After a hiatus from recording during which the Kemps established themselves as credible actors in the gangster film The Krays, the band released Heart Like a Sky in 1989. The trio returned in 1996 with their second album, A New Beginning, and had a No. 1 R&B hit again with the song "You're The One".

The title track was a big hit in the UK, but the album did nothing in America. In the summer of 1995, they made a guest appearance on Blackstreet's Top 40 hit "Tonight's the Night", lending their vocal harmonies. In 1986 Spandau Ballet signed to Epic Records and released Through the Barricades, which saw the band trying to move away from the pop/soul influences of True and Parade and more towards rock. The remix album, SWV: The Remixes, was unleashed the same year and went gold by the end of the year. At the end of 1984, the band performed on the Band Aid charity single, with Hadley taking a prominent lead vocal role; and in 1985, they performed at the Wembley end of Live Aid. In the spring of 1994, SWV contributed the old school radio version of "Anything", featuring Wu-Tang Clan to the soundtrack of the movie Above the Rim, which became another hit single. Its opening single "Only When You Leave" became their last American hit. Those singles did very well throughout 1993.

But the followup, Parade (1984), was critically drubbed for failing to move the band's sound forward. One other Top Ten R&B hit from It's About Time is "Always on My Mind". The album topped the charts on the both sides of the Atlantic and launched several hit singles such as "Gold" and the aforementioned title cut. 2 hit on the Pop chart. It was at this point that Norman became the band's sax player. 1 on the Pop chart as well and "Right Here/Human Nature" became a No. The image changed too - the cossack outfits and make-up of New Romanticism (which was dying as a fad in 1983 anyway) had been replaced by smart suits and well-scrubbed faces. "Weak" was No.

With newfound confidence and a cleaner, radio-friendly sound, Spandau Ballet finally broke into the mainstream with True (1983), an album whose title cut was a six-minute opus paying tribute to the Motown sound (and in some respects, Marvin Gaye). The two singles were followed by a couple of first place singles in a row, "Weak" and "Right Here/Human Nature" (a remix of their first single featuring samples of Michael Jackson's "Human Nature"). It was a massive hit. 2 hit "I'm So Into You" was what caused them to become a commercial force among urban fans. Horn also took the Diamond album track "Instinction" and gave it a bombastic dance remix that sounded not unlike the work he would later do for Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It came in 13th place on the R&B chart that year, but the No. The followup album Diamond performed poorly, despite a big hit with "Chant No.1", and the band met with veteran producer Trevor Horn, who advised them on how to revamp their image and sound. Their first single, "Right Here", came out in the autumn of 1992.

This was followed by "The Freeze" and "Musclebound" and the well-received album Journeys to Glory. SWV's series of Top Ten R&B hits made them one of the most successful and most popular urban R&B groups of the 1990s. The band eventually signed to Island Records and released "To Cut a Long Story Short", a British hit in 1980. He was one of the main producers responsible for making the finishing touches on their debut album released in 1992, It's About Time, which went platinum within its first year of release. They began performing and generating positive buzz around London as the house band at the Blitz nightclub, which became regarded as the birthplace of a new 1980s music and fashion phenomenon called New Romanticism. Teddy Riley took notice of a demo tape the threesome had set up. The band were initially called 'The Makers', but changed their name after a visit to Berlin, the inspiration from graffiti on the walls of Spandau Prison. SWV, also known as Sisters With Voices, is a new jill swing trio from New York that formed as three school friends in 1990: Cheryl "Coko" Gamble, Tamara "Taj" Johnson, and Leanne "Lelee" Lyons. All three girls began getting their singing experience in church when they were little, which is where they learned how to harmonize.

Guitarist and songwriter Gary Kemp and his brother, bassist Martin Kemp formed the band in 1979, with drummer John Keeble, lead vocalist Tony Hadley and Steve Norman, who initially played guitar but later switched to saxophone when the band changed musical direction. As with their poppier rivals Duran Duran they 'broke America', albeit briefly. Initially inspired by a mixture of funk, synthpop and New Romantic, they eventually mellowed into a mainstream AOR pop act. Spandau Ballet was a popular band of the 1980s.