Dee Edwards RIP

It has been announced today that Dee Edwards died last week in Detroit at the age of 60.

You can read a obiturary in the Detroit Free Press.

In the UK, she is best remembered for her driving mid 60's dance classic All The Way Home on D Town which I used to love hearing pounding out the speakers. It is full of lovely breaks and tempo changes with Dee sounding a lot more harsher than her later recordings which probably reflect her Southern upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama.

She recorded for several other Detroit labels including Premium Stuff, GM, Bumpshop, De To and Morning Glory as well as for 2 majors RCA and Cotillion.

My other favourite record by her is the sublime De To 45 I Can Deal With That. While thinking of her this afternoon, I dug back into her Cotillion albums and re-discovered one of the songs which is full of childhood memories - Stranger On The Shore from the 1979 Heavy Love album- this was a worldwide hit for Aker Bilk in the early 60's and was the theme of a TV programme and hence the childhood memory. Dee Edwards sings the song to utter perfection and she had a beautiful tone to her voice. It is a fine production by her husband Floyd Jones with some of the Funk Brothers on the backing which they recorded in Detroit at the Super Disc Recording Studios.