Gene McDaniels bids for chart success after 40 years

Gene McDaniels -Aged 75 and one of America's first solo black break through artists is making a bid to return to the US album charts with a host of worldwide singing stars after 40 years.

Gene McDaniels is pure class. Inherent talent, a tremendous background including gospel, jazz and pop with ample experience in all of those fields.

A unique song stylist and dynamic big voiced baritone, whose 1960s recordings defied pigeon-holing, appealing as they did to fans of R&B, pop and easy listening music. His music successfully crossed many musical barriers and has seen him with seven top ten records as either artist, producer or writer.With his history, big voice and beautiful song's this is bound to be a piece of musical history. The album a collection of duets will be recorded over the coming months with a release date later in the year.

The list of collaborators has yet to be confirmed but discussions have started with Clive Davis about producing the album.Gene Mcdaniels had hits in the late 50's & early 60's with such titles as '100 Pounds of Clay', 'Another Tear Falls' and 'Tower of Strength'.McDaniels also attained the top spot on the US chart as a songwriter and producer in 1974 when Roberta Flack reached number 1 with Feel Like Makin' Love, which won a Grammy that year.

In 1986 Gene received an award at BMI's Annual 'Million Airs' function for creating, producing and publishing 'Feel Like Making Love' - which had achieved over three million playback performances. The song went on to reach four million and continues to grow, having been recorded on hundreds of different artists' albums. Flack also recorded his 'Reverend Lee' about a preacher who was unconventional. 'Compared To What' is a modern day jazz standard written by Gene for jazzmen Les McCann (an old friend) and Eddie Harris. That song has appeared in some eight major films including 'Casino' starring Robert DeNiro and was featured in an international Coca-Cola campaign. Gene published his own and personal friends' music through his first music publishing firm Sky Forest Music BMI, in New York City and thus started a new career writing and producing films using a body of work personally created and developed by himself.

In recent years McDaniels has been writing music for feature film soundtracks. Alex Field (Alex Field Management) his London based manager, has confirmed that Mr McDaniels is currently selecting song's to be used on his duets album and is looking forward to recording.