Freda Payne: Band of Gold (1970) ... plus

Schooled in jazz and classical music, urbane singer Freda Payne attended the Institute of Musical Arts and worked with Pearl Bailey before recording one jazz-oriented album for Impulse in 1963 and, three years later, another one for MGM. In 1969, her old friends back home in Detroit, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Edward Holland, Jr., persuaded her to sign with their newly-formed record label Invictus. Her first single there, ‘The Unhooked Generation’, managed to be a minor R&B hit, but it was its magnificent follow-up that established Payne's reputation. The team, under the pen name 'Edith Wayne and Ron Dunbar' offered her a song entitled ‘Band of Gold’, an ambiguous wedding-night drama which became an instant pop smash in 1970. It reached #3 in the U.S. and #1 in the UK, giving Payne her first gold record. On the album of the same title that followed, Holland/Dozier/Holland took Payne's deep soulful voice further away from that sophisticated pop of earlier years, and hooked it up with a mix of fuzzy Detroit soul and sweeter southern styles. Besides the two aforementioned singles, the LP included loads of other great cuts, like ‘The Easiest Way to Fall’, ‘Deeper and Deeper’, and ‘This Girl Is a Woman Now’. This success prepared the way for several more excellent singles like ‘You Brought the Joy’, and the Vietnam War protest song ‘Bring the Boys Home’ (U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #12, 1971; her second gold record). A few more albums were released before she left Invictus in 1973. After that, she would record albums for ABC/Dunhill, Capitol and Sutra, but never found the commercial success that she had enjoyed with Invictus. I added to the original ‘Band of Gold’ album 5 bonus tracks, consisting on the three singles she released in 1971: ‘Cherish What Is Dear to You (While It Is Near to You)’, ‘Bring the Boys Home / I Shall Not Be Moved’ and You Brought the Joy / Suddenly It's Yesterday. http://en.wikipedia.org/, http://www.oldies.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/

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Freda Payne performs her biggest hit 'Band of Gold' on Soul Train:

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Here, singing live 'Deeper and Deeper', a song that reached #24 on US charts and #9 on the R&B charts:

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