They say you should never meet your heroes and it was even worse for The Stylistics after they accidentally rubbed James Brown up the wrong way. The legendary Philadelphia soul group got the chance to open for the Godfather of Soul on a 35-date US tour and despite initially being given a 20-minute slot, found their time cut down to 15 as they went down a little too well.
Singer Airrion Love told The Standard: “James Brown was a hero of ours and in the early days we got the chance to support him on an American tour. He was renowned to be quite tough on his backing bands and very particular about everything. We were going down so well that he cut our time onstage!”.
The Stylistics first formed in 1968 and achieved their greatest chart success in the 1970s with a string of hits including Betcha By Golly, Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart), Stoned in Love With You, You Make Me Feel Brand New and more. Despite a few line-up changes over the years, they have continued to perform, with the current formation including original members Love and Herb Murrell, along with with Jason Sharp who joined the group in 2011.
They recently released new album Falling In Love With My Girl, their first in two decades with the last being That Same Way in 2008. Speaking about their decision to get back in the recording studio, Love said aside from getting to work with The Elton John band on the record, it just seemed right.
“We knew we were onto something very special right from the word go with the album and was like going back in time to the 1970s when records were cut with live bands, rather than so much computerised stuff,” he explained. The album features quite the impressive roll call of collaborators, including Justin Hawkins, Gene Simmons, and Ray Parker, Jr. The record also includes the single Yes, I Will, which saw them team up with country music queen Shania Twain.
Fans will get the chance to hear some of the tracks live along with their back catalogue of crowd pleasers when they take to the road for their Greatest Hits and more! 23-date UK tour this November, including a date at the Wimbledon Theatre on November 17.
“We’ve been touring the UK for nearly 60 years. We’ll never forget the wild days of disco in London when we brought out our number one hit single Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love). We had so much fun with our audiences who loved to dance to the music, so much fun, especially after so many of our earlier hits had been ballads.”.
Love continued: “We play 25 or 30 shows in the UK every year and they are always sold out. We are so grateful to our UK fans, who are such amazing audiences, and we hope that they will listen to and love our new album. We were blessed that our Greatest Hits album was the biggest selling record in Britain in 1975. On our 2025 tour, we’ll be revisiting all those classic songs and also playing some new tracks from Falling In Love With My Girl.”.
He added: “It’s unbelievable all the people from London and the UK in general who have told us, ‘we got married to your music” or “our son or daughter was conceived to your song!’”. The Stylistics new album Falling In Love With My Girl is out now.
