Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth

Product Information

Since last September when we announced our collaboration with Billy Valentine, Bob Thiele Jr. and the Flying Dutchman label, with Billy’s peerless cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue’, we have been looking forward to the moment when we could share more music with you.

a b Porter, Lewis; Chris DeVito, David Wild, Yasuhiro Fujioka, Wolf Schmaler. The John Coltrane Reference, pp. 43, 374-6. Routledge, 2013. At Google Books. Retrieved 8 August 2019. Billy Valentine is a Los Angeles-based soul singer, songwriter, and producer who has been performing for five decades. He scored some hits during the 1980s with his brother John in the Valentine Brothers, including "Money’s Too Tight (To Mention)" and "Lonely Nights," and has sung for film and television. He has held club residencies for many years, playing to sold-out houses. Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth collects eight topical, spiritual, and socially conscious soul and gospel songs. This is the first release from the newly revamped Flying Dutchman label run by producer Bob Thiele, Jr. It was founded by his producer father and was the home of seminal recordings by Gato Barbieri, Leon Thomas, Lonnie Liston Smith, Gil Scott-Heron, and dozens of others. Thiele, Jr. is a longtime creative associate and business partner of Valentine's. In addition to his core band, they brought on an impressive cast of session players including vibraphonist Joel Ross, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, pianist Larry Goldings, bassists Pino Palladino, and Linda May Han Oh, trumpeter Theo Croker, drummer Abe Rounds, and guitarist Jeff Parker. Gart, Galen. First Pressings: The History of Rhythm and Blues: 1950. At Google Books. Retrieved 8 August 2019.Album Features Accompaniment From Theo Croker, Pino Pallodino, Jeff Parker, Immanuel Wilkins & Many More With the reactivation of the iconic jazz label, Flying Dutchman, veteran singer and songwriter Billy Valentine becomes the perfect artist to reintroduce the imprint with his sensational new album, Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth . Perhaps we should leave the last word to Bob Thiele Jr. He says: “ At the heart of every great spiritual teaching is the invitation for each of us to do something meaningful whether small in size or large. And as my late friend Bob Neuwirth used to ask of an artist, ‘But do you have something to say…?’ It is with those two principles in mind that we make this humble offering.” It follows previous single ‘We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue’, which marked the introduction to this project – the first new music on Flying Dutchman since the ’70s, in a joint-release with Acid Jazz Records. Singing demos opened doors for Valentine to work in television too. In television, Valentine sang on songs produced for Boston Legal and Sabrina, The Teenage Witch . And on the popular FX series Sons of Anarchy, over its entire 7 season run, Valentine’s voice would become a staple on so many memorable cover songs produced by the series’ composer Bob Thiele, Jr.

Following the duo’s dissolution in 1987, Valentine linked up with Bob Thiele Jr. (now the caretaker of Flying Dutchman) and Phil Roy, who as a trio began collaborating on songs that would ultimately go on to be recorded by Ray Charles, The Neville Brothers, and both Pops and Mavis Staples. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

In the years that followed Billy Valentine’s first brush with fame – when he and his brother John scored a breakthrough with their Reagan-era protest song Money’s Too Tight (To Mention) – the veteran singer made peace with life away from the spotlight. “There were periods when ‘Billy Valentine’ wasn’t needed,” the 73-year-old humbly reflects today, via video call from his home in Los Angeles. “It just wasn’t my time.” With the break-up of The Valentine Brothers, Billy, Phil Roy and Bob Thiele, Jr. formed a songwriting partnership penning songs for Ray Charles, Aaron Neville, The Neville Brothers and for Robert Townsend’s film The Five Heartbeats. (Billy also provided the singing vocals for fictional lead singer, Eddie King, Jr.) Now we an illustrious and multifaceted career that spans more than 50 years, Billy Valentine is ready to be reintroduced to world with the glowing, Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth . Find out more about Billy Valentine and this album via out recent interview… https://www.soulandjazzandfunk.com/interviews/speaking-a-universal-truth-the-billy-valentine-interview/

I just want to make a difference,” Valentine adds. “I had to get this stuff out of my gut, and say what needs to be said in a way that could change someone’s mind, someone’s attitude, or just make them stop and think.” Having rediscovered his voice singing the protests of others, he’s begun working on songs of his own once again tapping into the protest song tradition that made his name four decades ago. Billy Valentine’s time, it seems, has come again. “My work’s not done,” he nods. “I still have more songs I want to sing, social commentary things, if it’s meant to be. I’m a vocalist, and just like a runner has to run, a singer has to sing.” Earlier this month we released Billy’s take on Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’, which followed its predecessor onto Jazz FM’s A-list. Today we can share with you the news that the album ‘Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth’ is out on March 24th. It’s one you don’t want to miss. All of these songs speak to everything that we are going through now,” Valentine explains. “It feels like history is repeating itself. Once I stepped into these songs, beautiful things happened, because I’ve studied each of them. With each song, I was able to find a place within my soul.”The making of Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth seems to have started more than 30 years, after Valentine first met Bob Thiele Jr. in the late-1980s. Around that time, Valentine had recently ended his partnership with his brother John. Together, they’d recorded as the Valentine Brothers. Beginning in 1979, the Valentine Brothers released a handful of (now rare groove) modern soul LPs on Source, Bridge, A&M, and EMI Records. Some of their most renowned singles include 1982’s “Lonely Nights” and “Money’s Too Tight (to Mention).” The latter was covered three years later by the British soul group, Simply Red.