Ebony Alleyne - Whistle For A Ride

Recently for the first time in eighteen long months, the scintillating beautiful Ebony Alleyne returned to the studios, with "In My Own Defence", and we held up an entire album, "Soul Steppers", to get that beautiful song recorded. Here we present a wonderful Ebony song that we cut eighteen months earlier for the album "Disco 2008". All of Ebony's growing fanbase were delighted by her much acclaimed solo album, "Never Look Back", on Expansion Records. It was a whole glorious brand new day for Ebony. Her wonderful album finally came out on Expansion, after she was first signed to a major label in 2002. I was brought in to produce her entire album. We did an magnificent album of generic live "real" smooth sophisticated soul music, with a huge orchestra (sixty strings, thirty brass), with a Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick flavour overall, and this was well before Nora Jones, Joss Stone, Corinne Bailey Rae, and most particularly Amy Winehouse, all hit with basically the same thing. The Ebony album was utterly utterly wonderful, and I was so proud of it. It took a year and a half to make, and the legendary head of A&R, Muff Winwood, oversaw it personally. "Walk Away And Never Look Back", was the first song we recorded. We introduced her to the soul scene by reactivating the old classic Okeh label, owned by Sony, and pressing up tiny limited editions of three all different singles on the Okeh label on seven inch vinyl. Everything looked wonderful and rosy, but suddenly Ebony was set free without a record being released. Then, five years later, along with brand new 2007 material, justice finally got served, and the world got to hear what I consider to be my finest hour musically. After releasing her album two years ago, we have cut five further songs, three for "Northern Soul 2007" and one for "Disco 2008", and now, after an eighteen month gap, while she studied for her law degree, a fantastic new song, "In My Own Defence". Ebony and I co-wrote "Whistle For a Ride", this fabulous uplifting song with my long time producing partner Clive Scott. Clive recently had a tragic accident and fell off a ladder onto concrete, and we still don't know whether he will recover, so I dedicate this song to his magnificent talent and artistry.