1 post tagged “john stuart”

Here starts at last my Crooners thread, and I will state right here at the beginning that no songs posted will contain the MMc Factor.  In this case MMc stands not for Microsoft Management Console, but Michael McDonald.  Just as there are certain flavors I can't stand (wintergreen), and certain smells (whatever the key scent in scented toilet paper is), and certain textures (eggplant), so are there sounds I don't like, and one of them is Michael McDonald's voice.  That is the sound I call the MMc Factor.  Other singers have it, too, and that has prevented me from liking music that I would have enjoyed otherwise.  XTC is a prime example; I have a hard time getting past Andy Partridge's MMc Factor.

So with that out of the way I'll segue from Sheffield into Crooners with a Sheffield crooner, John Stuart.  Richard Hawley is currently riding a wave of popularity in the UK as the "Sheffield Sinatra," but in 1987 he played guitar behind velvet-voiced ex-Chakk singer John Stuart on Stuart's only solo single, a cover of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze."  You will never hear a lusher version:

(There's that unmistakable Designers Republic graphic style again.)  Rounding out the backing band, billed as The Heavenly Music Corporation, are Dee Boyle (drums, also from Chakk), Darrell de Silva (sax), Jon Quarmby (keyboards), Justin Bennett (percussion), and Heather Allen (backing vocals), with production by Rob Gordon. 
Alas, that was all from The Heavenly Music Corporation as such.  Stuart would go on to be a member of the Lovebirds (with Hawley) and Magic Bullets.  He now lives in Barcelona and continues making lovely music as one-half of Forgetting, and on his own as, once again, The Heavenly Music Corporation.  (Hooray again for MySpace!)