RECORDING HISTORY (continued from home page)
........Helena appears as one of a selection of special guests on a CD called Tip Toe recorded with Brass & Fun - a fabulous Big Band from Buehl near Baden Baden in Germany. Another great soloist on this CD is well known to the jazz world; Ack Van Rooyen, Trumpet player from Holland. The two songs Helena sings: Love For Sale and Fever, were arranged by the internationally famous big band arranger, Peter Herboltzheimer from Cologne, Germany. The CD was recorded at the SWR radio station studios in Karlsruhe, Germany and it carries a great and exciting tension on a par with all the great well known big bands around the world.
Helena recorded a single feature with Dobie for his CD release back in 98 The Sound Of One Hand Clapping. The song she recorded is called Love Song - a cover, and a particular favourite of hers. Helena gives a sultry performance where she captures the soul feel of the song amongst the deep bass mix with an almost lovers rock reggae-style interpretation and does great backing vocals too.
Helena had a club hit back in 94 with a cover of Aint Nobody signed in Paris, France by BMG/RCA. This was in a time when she was recording and writing together with British producer (and ex-band member from Halo James) Neil Palmer. The single charted to ..6 in France and ..20 on the German dance floor charts as well as having a good amount of European success overall. Neil has since moved to Germany also (as part of the teams mass exodus!) and enjoys a great deal of success as he works closely together with their number one Artist, Xavier Naidoo, as his producer, co-writer and pianist. Helena and Neil still share a whole catalogue of unreleased music and they hope one day that they might get the chance in their busy schedules to come together and look at it again!
One more single release success that Helena had on the German dance floor scene was a version of the old hit from Captain and Tennille: Do That To Me One More Time. This was recorded with the producers from Sweetbox under the act name of Da Flava (signed by a label from Dortmund called Dance Street, Germany distributed by ZYX Music, GmbH). They recorded the song in the Fugees sound, current at that time, where the production had great beats and the song was interspersed with a trendy rapper.
A secret love of Helenas has always been reggae music as she grew up with a huge influence from the West Indian musical culture in South London in the late 70s, early 80s. (She can even chat in Jamaican patois if asked nicely!) Before leaving Germany she was also involved in working with a new Reggae Band called The Rise Up Crew and together they wrote some great authentic reggae music. The Band members are a real menagerie of cultures ranging from West Indian, African, French, New Zealand, British and of course, German but all with a common love of reggae music! Helena is very fond of this material and looks forward to its release too. Maybe her new stage name could be Helena Pauley Paul ;-)