Hello my friends, back into the 2000s, around 2005-2006, I remember my close friend Nicolas Drosos who has passed away, calling me in order to share his surprise about the song "Close To You" by Chi-Lites. He was amazed and really liked this song. It was included in the various CD "Soul Togetherness 2005" by Expansion Records. When I first listened to it, I admitted that it was a nice song indeed. The CD mentions that the song was written by the great singer and composer of the group, Eugene Record. The production was by Marshall Thompson. Marshall Thompson was another member of the group. I tried to find more information about it but nothing at all came up. It was very strange to me that I couldn't find any information. I had discovered a way via web so as to find something about the rights of the songs but again, no luck.
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Many years later, in 2014, I found a nice Japanese jazz fusion group. I remember I bought an album at that time and I started searching for more albums concerning this group. Two years later, I found another one of their albums. As I was listening to its songs, I recognized the song of Chi-Lites. I took a look at the details of the album and I saw Chi-Lites on vocals. This was the original recording because the album was released in 1986. A few days later I bought this album and I kept it as my top secret for years.
In this album, there is the song "Close To You", just with a different title. In comparison, the song "Close To You" is exactly identical with the song on that album. But there is a main difference. The song of the Japanese group includes a solo electric guitar. This segment has been removed from the song which was included in the CD of Expansion Records. On the details of the album, it is mentioned that this song's lyrics were written by Eugene Record and music by a Japanese musician of the group.
The previous Sunday, I had the pleasure of presenting this song on my show on Coni-OnAir. It's the time to reveal to you the name of the Japanese group. Their name is ChickenShack. This group consists of five members. I have already presented this group here on my blog in 2014. The guitarist June Yamagishi and the saxophonist Hidefumi Toki stand out. As I told you before, the title of the original song was different from the version of Expansion Records. It is entitled "Slow Motion" and the album "ChickenShack II".
Of course, Chi-Lites feature on vocals. Music was written by Hidefumi Toki who also played a solo saxophone. Only the lyrics were written by Eugene Record. I don't know why it is mentioned on the Expansion's release in 2005 that Eugene Record was the composer. The production on the album was by the same group, ChickenShack. Maybe they didn't believe that someone, somewhere in the world would find this album and this song. They changed the name of the song, removed the solo electric guitar and made a new song. I want to underline that Expansion included again the song "Close to You" in the various "Soul Cafe" in 2012. Also, I want to note that the CD was compiled by Richard Searling and Ralph Tee.
Here below is the video from Sunday's show.
This article is dedicated to my friend Nicolas Drosos, who sadly passed away in 2021.Dionisis Dimos (AKA SoulDennis)
https://www.coni-onair.com/
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