Naturally 7
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Naturally 7 |
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Naturally 7 is an American music group with a distinct a cappella style they call "Vocal Play". They sing primarily R&B with extensive beat-boxing. Band members are Garfield Buckley, Rod Eldridge, Warren Thomas, Jamal Reed, Roger "N'glish" Thomas, Dwight Stewart, and Armand "Hops" Hutton. Their style is strongly reminiscent of Take 6.
History
The origins of the group date back to New York City in 1999 when Roger Thomas started the group with his brother, Warren, and five other talented singers they had come to know over the years from singing around the city. Having been in and out of several traditional male groups over the years, Roger developed an affinity for a cappella sounds and a unique ability to create distinct harmony arrangements. When invited to sing at a major a cappella competition in New York, they won the competition, moved onto the nationals and took away two more wins.
Riding the wave of this newfound success and still unable to decide if Naturally 7 were going to be an a cappella group or a traditional band, Roger had a novel idea: they could be both.
He remembered as a child, his brother Warren always wanted a drum set but their mother always told him no because it was just too noisy. So Warren learned to make true drum sounds, with different ways of making the kick, toms, snare, cymbals, and other drum sounds, to compensate for not having real drums to play. Roger approached Warren with the idea from their childhood, and asked if he could become the band's drummer, so to speak, to accompany Naturally 7 on up-tempo songs.
The band has now recorded four albums - "Non Fiction" the aptly titled "What is it" which spawned the #1 German hit "Music is the Key", a duet with German singer Sarah Connor, "Christmas---it's a love story" and "Ready II Fly". The latter contains the radio and You Tube hit "Feel it (In the air tonight)".
Today Naturally 7 are Roger Thomas (musical director, arranger, 1st baritone, Rap), Warren Thomas (percussion, guitar, clarinet, 3rd tenor), Rod Eldridge (1st tenor, scratching, trumpet), Jamal Reed (4th tenor, electric guitar), Dwight Stewart (2nd baritone), Garfield Buckley (2nd tenor, harmonica) and Armand "Hops" Hutton (bass).
They spawned two Hit-Singles, a cover of Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight" which was an international Top-Twenty song (France, Italy) and "Music Is the Key" with German singer Sarah Connor which hit the number 1 in Germany and the Top-Ten in Switzerland, Poland and Austria.
On July 12 2007, they performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, together with artists like Al Jarreau and George Benson. In July 2008 they performed at Quincy Jones' 75th Birthday concert in Montreux and the audience's reception of them attracted the notice of Tavis Smiley, who subsequently invited the group to perform on his television. show.[1]. In May they made their national U.S. Television debut on Ellen and joined Michael Bublé for a guest appearance on The Today Show.
More recently they opened for Jay Leno in Las Vegas and performed at NARM.
On 4 February 2009, they performed "Wall of Sound" for the 2009 TED Conference[2].
Discography
Albums
- 2000: Non-Fiction
- 2003: What Is It?
- 2004: Christmas... It's A Love Story
- 2006: Ready II Fly
- 2009: Wall Of Sound
Singles
- "Music Is the Key" (duet with Sarah Connor) (GER #1; SWI #2; POL #2; AUT #6)
- "Feel it (In The Air Tonight)" (GER #55; SWI #78; POL #29; ITA #14; FRA #2)
DVDs
- Live In Berlin
- Live In Montreux 2007 (Eagle Rock)
External links
- Official website
- MySpace Page
- Video of "In the Air Tonight" performance on the Paris Metro
- Facebook Page
- iLike artist page