Vocalist Simon Foster’s musical career started in back in 1985, performing his first love, Soul music, with his band Weekend in Paris, touring the UK supporting artists as diverse as Joe Brown, The Platters, The Stylistics, Edwin Starr and Gino Washington. Soon after that he landed the part of Elwood in the West End Show “The official Tribute to The Blues Brothers”, staying with the show for eleven years. After some time away from performing due to a serious accident, in 2004 Simon's undoubted qualities as a singer and performer were recognised when he was asked to join the iconic Internationally recognised a cappella band The Flying Pickets. He has been, to date, instrumental in the recording, arranging and production of four of their albums, all of which have received critical acclaim, and he has continued to perform worldwide with the band through to the present....
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Vocalist Simon Foster’s musical career started in back in 1985, performing his first love, Soul music, with his band Weekend in Paris, touring the UK supporting artists as diverse as Joe Brown, The Platters, The Stylistics, Edwin Starr and Gino Washington. Soon after that he landed the part of Elwood in the West End Show “The official Tribute to The Blues Brothers”, staying with the show for eleven years. After some time away from performing due to a serious accident, in 2004 Simon's undoubted qualities as a singer and performer were recognised when he was asked to join the iconic Internationally recognised a cappella band The Flying Pickets. He has been, to date, instrumental in the recording, arranging and production of four of their albums, all of which have received critical acclaim, and he has continued to perform worldwide with the band through to the present.
Simon’s other ongoing project is Arcelia, a genre defining “Folk Soul” band which has recently been touring with Chris Difford of Squeeze and with whom he has also produced and arranged two albums. In amongst all this Simon has also got to work with some impressive Jazz artists, including Richard Rozze (guitar) and Paul Booth (sax). And if al that wasn't enough Simon is also an experienced sound engineer and co-founder of How Now Productions. An enthusiastic collector of microphones (he worked closely with Georg Neumann Microphones GmBh, testing and developing their range of digital mics) and, as he says "his passion for recording the human voice knows no bounds!" Simon was asked to be a "Special Guest" on a gig here at the Club recently, which by chance also involved an old friend, ace studio bass player Phil Mulford. Simon and Phil enjoyed working together so much that they decided (with a little encouragement from me…) to put a band together to play some old school Soul & Funk, just for the fun of it. The resulting stellar band is appearing this evening and includes not only Phil Mulford-bass (Lionel Richie, Lewis Taylor) but also 606 regulars Frank Tontoh (George Michael, Lewis Taylor, The Crusaders, Amy Winehouse and Ronnie Laws)-drums, Oli Howe (Freak Power)-keyboards and Bobby Quigley (Joy Rose, Imaani, Sumudu, Noel McCalla)-guitar. The guys tell me the music will be "a predominantly Soul/Jazz set with maybe a little Funk thrown in for good measure!". This promises to be a unique night of great Groove music featuring some of the finest players on the scene and definitely not to be missed.
"Foster….like Joe Cocker in Van Morrison’s hat and James Morrison’s socks. Ace!" Karamel Music Club
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