With the Great Voices of Soul Concert fast approaching in November we had the opportunity to sit down with one of the legendary acts on the line-up, the S.O.S. Band.
Originally founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1977, The S.O.S. Band found fame in the 80’s with tracks such as ‘Just Be Good To Me’, ‘The Finest’, ‘Take Your Time (Do It Right)’ amongst many and have seen their music sampled by many artists over the years. With a timeless sound still played and sounding relevant today they show no signs of giving up the music.
We sat down with Mary and Abdul from the band to have a little chat and gained an exclusive bit of information which is bound to make you old school music lovers very happy.
The S.O.S. band have a classic sound that still sounds so good even now, how does it feel to be part of such an important part of a music history?
Mary – Well for me it’s a blessing to still be able to do what we do, and enjoy doing. It’s a wonderful thing.
Abdul – It’s a privilege you know, we are blessed to be in the band with producers that produce sounds that are still relevant today. Even with our last album done in 1986, the sounds are similar to what they are using today. It’s mostly virtual now. But I’m like Mary I am just so grateful that we accomplished things we really didn’t know the significance that it would have. We were just going through the process. We have lots of gratitude to be able to still be around and doing things.
Whilst your music has inspired many artists along the way, who first inspired you to make music?
Mary – My inspiration was Shirley Caesar, Aretha Franklin, All artists that have the gift and to use it to their ability. I think that’s a wonderful thing.
Abdul – One of my greatest influences.. I’ve been in bands since I was in like the 9th grade about 15, 16. But one of my greatest influences was James Brown and James Brown Band. He always had instrumental LP’s that he was putting out. The first thing that attracted me was James Brown himself and from that point I started following Motown and all the other musicians that came about from that era.
Over the years, your music has been sampled and covered by many artists, are they any you really liked or didn’t take to what they had done to the original track?
Mary – I think it’s a wonderful thing to have another artist recognise your work. I liked all of them because it’s an honour to have someone think enough of what you have done to try to do it again.
Abdul – I can’t think of any I didn’t like. No one has done a dis-service to anything we have done. It’s a credit to us and the people we’ve been involved with and the musicians that we have had.
We seem to have a lot of dance tracks at the moment that have re-worked the classic tracks of the 80s/90s, what are your views on those?
Mary – For me it’s a good thing because, when we were coming up we were all mostly musicians that played music. Then it came about with the rappers and tracking and sampling etc. It’s a good thing to go back as that was real music, I mean I like rap but I’m just partial to RnB and that’s a wonderful thing to be turned around like that. You have a lot of kids now that are trying to play instruments, it’s a good thing.
Abdul – We travel now. We’ve been travelling with groups from our era. But now we are travelling with groups from the 90s, 80s and 70s and really the reason I think the demographic has changed up is that everybody is older. From that point, everybody is just like one family. It’s kind of caught up. Everybody just gets older, the bands are back. When you look at rappers, Rappers have musicians now. You can never replace a human being performing on stage; you can’t replace that with technology.
So if I were to come round to your house for dinner which artist would I hear coming out of your stereo?
Mary – I like a variety so you would probably hear Jill Scott, Shirley Caesar, Aretha a little of Marvin Gaye. I like old Music.
Abdul – My wife would be playing all RnB. My thing would be like Mary, I like diversity but being a musician myself, I like Jazz, a little Marvin Gaye and the classic people. Oh and Stevie Wonder especially.
Me – I’m waiting for my dinner invite now (laughs).
Mary – Aww your welcome to dinner whenever you want to come. Your welcome come on down.
We can’t wait to see you performing your classics at the Great Voices of Soul gigs in November; do you have your set already planned?
Mary – We’re going to try to play all the hits if they allow use time wise. We gonna play Take Your Time, Just Be Good To Me, Groovin, Just The Way You Like It.
Abdul – Like Mary says it all depends on the time. We want to play all the popular songs everybody likes. We’re gonna have a good time, If we have the time we will do more. If we don’t we will play the songs that were really iconic for us. Whatever you hear is going to be good. We are prepared. We have great band members, we have a great family. We love each other, we love being around each other. I think that is invaluable you have to have things like that. We just enjoy each other.
Which song do you like performing the most?
Mary – I like performing all of them but my favourite has to be “Just Be Good To Me” I like people to be good to me and I try to be good to others.
Abdul – I have to go with “Take Your Time” It’s still that song that when people hear it they don’t care what we play. It has that sound that is just incredible, it’s like a staple, it’s constant its always there. I love so many of our songs, but that song is what gave us the opportunity as in it was the biggest single we ever recorded.
Who from the line up are you most looking forward to seeing perform yourselves?
Mary – It has to be Patti Labelle. We travelled with her back in the day and she’s a beautiful person. So I’m looking forward to performing with her.
Abdul interjects at this point to announce the SOS band is recording a new album.
Abdul – We are in the process of recording and what is going on now is we are on a Pledge Music site. We are inviting everyone to be a part of it. We did a single last year which was a massive hit in the UK. It exceeded our expectations. The UK and Europe have been so good to us and we are just trying to complete that project.
Great Voices of Soul tickets are now on sale at the following outlets, AXS.COM, Ticketmaster.co.uk,Ticketweb.co.uk, www.Seetickets.com, http://www.ssearena.co.uk/events/detail/great-voices-of-soul
Tickets: £50, £60, £75, £80, £100