Paul Hardcastle  

Rich as the retrospective is with the achievements to date of Paul Hardcastle, we must speak of the eternally talented musician not just in the past tense, but present and future as well.

While his 80‘s recording’s finally begin to gather the garlands they always deserved for their place among the decades most influential soul and dance recordings. It’s no yesterday man we’re celebrating here, but the formative work of a true craftsman who, to give a well-earned outing of a well-worn phrase, was years ahead of his time.

Hardcastle, born on December 10th 1957, first emerged in late 1981 when he appeared on Don’t Depend On Me, a single by British soul hopefuls Direct Drive which was more noted for its b-side Time Machine. With vocalist Derek Green, Paul appeared on another Direct Drive single in March 82, Time’s Running out/I’m The One. The domestic soul cognoscenti gave this pair of releases a knowing nod, but Hardcastle and Green already knew enough to branch away and form their own group.

First Light came to attention under the auspices of Charlie Gillett’s Oval label, pairing Paul’s songwriting and playing and the vocals of fellow Londoner Green. In an era when British dance music was coming out from under the jazz-funk umbrella and trying some new grooves, Gillett heard the promise in First Light uninhibited, upbeat approach and released their debut single, a surprising update of America’s early 70’s anthem ‘A Horse With No Name’ in June 1982. In November that year came the ‘Sixteen Minutes Of First Light” 12 inch single, offering Hardcastle’s ‘A.M’ plus I Don’t Care’, co-written with Green, and the trusty ‘Time Machine’

That twelve became a substantial club success, but Paul’s first whiff of pop chart action came in May 83 by which time Gillett had lined up a distribution deal for First Light with London Records and they grappled to number 65 nationally with ‘Explain The Reasons’. A further number 71 showing came early in 1984 with ‘Wish You Were Here’.

Hardcastle moved on up once again. In March 1984 he released his first single under his own name and via his own label. Total Control Records (set up with the late, larger than life London club DJ and subsequent chart star Steve Walsh) and released a medley of ‘Daybreak and A M’ with a version of James D-Train Williams seminal dance workout ‘Your The One For Me’. Running his own label brought the artist to street level - literally. “The first 3,000 copies of ‘Your The One For Me’ I took around in my car, saying ‘have a listen to this” Hardcastle reminisced with this writer in Record Mirror in 1985. Narrowly thwarted by BBC Radio One’s refusal to play such new-frangled dance music, the single unluckily peaked at number 41. It was followed onto the national survey by ‘Guilty’, a number 55 that summer.

Hardcastle’s name was now a byword for quality among students of British soul. He released the hypnotic instrumental ‘Rainforest’ for the Bluebird label, and despite cleaning up as usual on the nation’s dance floor’s Paul’s wretched luck saw the single stop at the “grave yard” position 41 again. But the hard part was almost over.

As the year ended Hardcastle released his first material for Chrysalis Records emerging Cooltempo label. ‘Eat Your Heart Out’, with vocals by fellow traveller Kevin Henry leveled out at number 59, but across the Atlantic something was stirring. ‘Rainforest ‘ had been snapped up by Profile Records, who worked the record to urban radio and were rewarded with a New Year number 4 mega hit on the Billboard Hot 100. A further top 40 R’ n’ B single with ‘King Tut’ followed - and this was just the beginning of a breathtaking year.

For Paul’s next release on Cooltempo, he decided to try a different approach. Staying true to the dance genre that had got him this far, he perfected a dramatic, arresting semi-instrumental composition based on something he’d heard about the average age of combat soldiers in the Vietnam war. The production values of the resulting track have given “19” a place in the all-time dance music winners enclosure.

By the time it became commercially available at the end of April 1985, the buzz about 19 was deafening, the hooks of its sc-sc-scratching title phrase and the voice of documentary-style commentator Clark Peters already embedded deep in an excited audience. The song crash-landed on the British chart at number four and seven days later forcibly ejected Phyllis Nelson’s last dance ballad ‘Move Closer’ from a one week stay at number 1. 19 spent a majestic five weeks at the summit, bowing only to The Crowd’s fundraising remake of ‘Your’ll Never Walk Alone’ and went on to become an international sensation. Paul remembers now. “I remember it sold 65,000 copies here on the day it was number one in 13 different countries and it’s one of the records I could hear on the radio and still feel proud.”

’19’ was remade by Paul in five other languages-French,Spanish,German, Japanese and Italian- sales to date are now estimated to be over 8 million and even inspired a spoof by an up and coming comedian called Rory Bremner, who under the name of The Commentators (and under the low profile production of Gillett) took ‘N-N-Ninteen Not Out’ to number 13 a few weeks later. only lately Paul admitted that he was actually behind the track,

After ’19’ had completed a 16 week tenure on the bestsellers Hardcastle released a self titled album for Chrysalis in November 1985 and went down another avenue of experimentation with the follow up single , Just For Money. Unwilling to stick to a formula and repeat the hit process for the sake of it, Just for Money reached number 19 nationally, another UK Top 10 hit, from March 1986 when it reached number 8 is ‘Don’t waste My Time featured Carol Kenyon.

Hardcastle had several other chart singles with Chryslalis before his time with them ended, but one more Top 20 success was to become part of the lives of millions of TV viewers. Late in 1986 he released ‘The Wizard’ granted immortality as the theme for Top Of The Pops,

Since his last British chart appearance under his own name with 40 Years in the summer of 1988, Hardcastle has continued his musical crusades in a less public way, but with more than satisfactory results, with Number ones in Japan with singles such as Don’t Be Shy. and Blue Days

Signing to Motown Paul began his association with Jaki Graham and his new project called Kiss The Sky.

Paul decided to take the smooth sound of his Rainforest days and mix it with a Kenny G feel to create the Jazzmasters who began to dominate the Smooth Jazz charts in America with number one hits from each of his albums up to time of writing he has topped the Smooth AC chart 10 times, and in 2010 won Billboards best international Musician category

For the last 4 years Paul has been presenter for Broadcast architecture in Los Angeles , his radio show is syndicated weekly across the United states,

This year 2011 19 re entered the Uk National top 40 due to the fact that Manchester Utd won 19 titles, Paul gave the royalties for this to a children's charity,

June 2011 Hardcastle released his latest Smooth AC Album Hardcastle 6

A single released featured Marvin Gaye on on a mix of Rainforest /What’s going on which has been a big hit for Paul in the States on both the Smooth chill and also Dance charts,

Over the last few years Paul has rekindled his interest with Dance Music and has also started doing remixes again, Recording an Album for Pacha Ibiza entitled Perceptions of Pacha to be released next year,

At the time of writing, a second single from Hardcastle 6 entitled Touch and Go is currently sitting at number 2 on the Billboard Adult contemporary chart

Early Remixes include 5 Star, Luther Vandros Change, Barry white, Ian Dury and the blockheads, Phil Lynot ,Thin Lizzy, D Train, George mcrae, Daniel Boone, Hiroshima, Direct Drive, The Deff Boyz, LFO, Julian Jonah,

etc etc,