Glen Anthony Henry

I was tipped to Glen Anthony Henry by Alex Subinas from Soul Portrait. Craig Charles also played cuts off his new album over the last fortnight.

Here's Glen's MySpace blurb:

We are living an old style black music boom. Many artists nowadays compose black music in a very classic style but most of them - especially in the USA, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Finland, Spain...- simply dedicate themselves to do funk. Nobody makes REAL soul music of classic 70’s style at the moment!

Glen Anthony Henry is an authentic soul singer and his music remembers those old and beautiful albums recorded in the 70’s, silky soul music with those sweet and magic touches of the flutes, the horns - and the strings. Glen Anthony Henry and Carlo Coupé love Marvin Gaye and Chicago sound too: Curtis Mayfield, Leroy Hutson... The heritage of these masters is present on „Relax & Love“ but this essence is filtered by the contemporary sensibilities of two great artists of today.

Glen Anthony Henry is a soul singer from L.A., California. As a passionate defender of the afroamerican movement he started singing in churches and studying the works of the old masters of 60’s and 70’s soul. In 1998 he collaborated with Erykah Badu, did lead and backing vocals (f.e. Wagon Cookin´, Samy Deluxe...) with many different artists in Europe and the USA. In 1999 he moved to Palma de Mallorca, doin’ a show with The Majestics at a Motown Records Tribute Concert. Glen Anthony stayed there for four and half years.

Then in 2000 big up to his friend Elmore Richmond who introduced him to Dr. Dre, long story short outcome: Glen wrote the lyrics for „Let´s Get High“ on Doctor Dre's "The Chronic“ masterpiece in 2001 and did the backing vocals to that track as Anthony. Glen is living in Madrid today. He’s one of the best soul singers in the world believe it! Carlo Coupé is a renowned spanish composer, arranger, B3 hammond-organ player / keyboardist, producer and of course DJ. The man behind the infamous spanish group The Sweet Vandals (he was the creator, hammond organ player, writer of many of their tunes and producer of their first album entitled "The Sweet Vandals“). Carlo Coupé started his professional career in 1999 doin’ 4 albums in which he played jazz, soul, pop, brazil, funk.... Later in 2003 he created Funxplosion - the first spanish instrumental deep funk band. The first time Carlo met Glen was in may 2006. Seeing him perform and sing in another project during this spanish festival left a deep impression upon the composer and producer.

In January 2007, Carlo wrote to Glen and suggested him that they should work together. Glen said yeah. And they started the job writing and recording „Relax & Love“. The work system of this project was easy: Carlo wrote and arranged the songs instrumentally and Glen adds his voice, vocal melodies and his lyrics. The album was recorded, mixed and produced by Carlo at his vintage studios (Funkorama Studios 3 & 4) where instruments, amplifiers, microphones, preamps, processors are originally from the 60’s and 70’s. The takes have been recorded on an 8-track tape-machine. The album was recorded in two sessions: the first between april and may and the second from october to november 2007. Glen sung the lead and even added some backing vocals, Carlo played synths, electric piano and Hammond organ while he was conducting the band too. The backing band with a total of 16 different instrumentalists consists of musicians from these fine acts: Speak Low, The Sweet Vandals and Funxplosion. In September of 2007 Unique Records released the first 45 of Glen Anthony Henry. “Hope” (UNIQ130-1) is a wild soul funk stormer which has become an anthem from scratch, played by many famous international DJs in the scene like Keb Darge, Snowboy. The album entitled “Relax and Love” will be released on CD and LP in spring 2008. The second single taken from the debut album will be entitled “I Don´t Know” which is yet another delicate and beautiful modern soul masterpiece just like the whole album is!