Thursday, February 01, 2018

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Delegation

Artist:Delegation
Song:Oh Honey
Album:A Golden Classics Edition





Oh Honey was the biggest hit for British R&B group Delegation in 1977. They were more successful at home than in the US. The leader of Delegation was Ricky Bailey. He was born in Jamaica but his family moved to Birmingham, England when he was a teen. His first group Five Star Cadets was short lived. But then he formed Delegation with Len Coley and Roddy Harris. Producer Ken Gold got them a deal with State Records. Gold produced the popular R&B group The Real Thing. Gold wrote most of the songs with long time partner Michael Denne. Delegation's debut album The Promise Of Love was released in 1976. They had success on the British charts with singles like Where Is The Love (We Used To Know). It got them a US deal with Shadybrook Records. Oh Honey reached #6 on the R&B Singles chart and #45 on the Billboard Hot 100. They moved to the much larger Ariola label. Coley left and was replaced by Bruce Dunbar. the 1979 album Eau De Vie was moderately successful in Europe but went nowhere in the US. That's probably because Ariola was an Italian label that didn't have great distribution in the US with RCA. Then Harris left and was replaced by Ray Patterson. They released a couple more unsuccessful albums and then Dunbar was replaced by Kathy Bryant in 1984. Delegation continued to release singles in Europe with little success. This Collectables comp covers their 70s recordings. Bailey continued to record as Delegation in the 90s. But it looks like it wasn't a group at this point. Bailey was the only credited vocalist. Hey may be still around the British music scene but I don't see any recent credits. Here's a video for Oh Honey by Delegation.

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