Dancer

Freestyle comes with it again – presenting the first officially licensed reissue for a previously white label-only slice of fantastic 1982 UK boogie funk, featuring the vocal talents of a then 19 year-old Caron Wheeler!

La Famille were a group put together at the turn of the 1980s by seasoned reggae & jazz guitarist (and later band-member with the award-winning Jazz Jamaica) Alan Weekes. The band’s main line-up consisted not only of a young Wheeler, but also a young Cleveland Watkiss – as well as the late Claudia Fontaine (who would go on to pair with Caron as Afrodiziak) & Roy Hamilton – with guitar, arrangement and production provided by Weekes.

While the group was short-lived – recording only this 12″ alongside a couple of singles for Leonard “Santic” Chin’s Sanity label (a stellar cover of the Mary Jane Girl’s classic All Night Long) and Alan’s later Bpop label (the down-tempo groover Lost in Paradise, co-arranged alongside Watkiss) – there is no denying the talent on display here, as the years and decades that followed can surely attest.