Interview with Henry Horne
Last month, I had the chance to discuss with Henry Horne, a much respected artist in the 80’s Boogie community for his involvement with both THS and The Creations. I immediately submitted to him the idea to conduct an interview to go a little bit further and address aspects of his career that were not presented in previous interviews given to both Dutch and Swedish websites.
The highlight of my career was coming to Europe from the states in 1984/85 and visiting many of the clubs and even performing at a few of them with the track “Lady Shine” Meeting and greeting so many wonderful fans during that time frame and also visiting a few radio stations in the UK including Radio One. Meeting Stevie Wonder at Gullivers in London was the ultimate and when he said he liked the song as well, I was just totally floored…..
As I said before, in previous interviews given in both 2003 and 2007 (www.danceclassics.net/henry-horne.html) the emphasis was placed on your involvement with THS and The Creations. Therefore, I decided not to ask you the same questions again and explore other aspects of your career. You released in 2010, in partnership with Boogie Times, a CD with a selection of great unreleased tracks by THS. Were all these tracks (“Invasion of The Freaks” “Mystery Lady” “Crazy About Your Love”…) supposed to be released as an album before the band got dismantled? Personally, I find most of these tracks very good, these songs could have made a very complete LP at the time ! Could you tell us more about each of these tracks?
Those tracks were part of a collection of demos that we recorded actually way prior to “Lady Shine” even written. There were so many other demos that we recorded that we can’t find copies of that we wish our fans could have heard. We did do a full blown recording of a 2nd release to follow “Lady Shine” that I’m sad to say..there is no copy of that either. That song was called “See You Later Aligator”.
Another unreleased track entitled “Say That” leaked on internet around 4 years ago. Could you certify that this track was made by THS? Was this track recorded in 1983 as well? Could you tell us more about this song?
I was upset and happy at the same time in regards to the track “Say That” That song was written by me and Alexander Hall, lead singer of the group The Creations. I was upset because I emailed someone in the UK the MP3 to hear some of the things Alexander and I were working on. He and I were tossing the idea around of started a new group called Horne and Hall. The person I emailed the song to, let that recording leak out and was not suppose to and when people overseas started asking me about the release of that song, I got a little upset. Alexander and I never got to finish that track or any of the other tracks.
Do you have any other unreleased material from these years (1983-84) that you think should be interesting to release?
Yes, as I said earlier, I wish I had copies of a lot of the material that Roger Garnett and I recorded. We would love for our fans to hear that stuff.
Among all the artists of the 80’s soul funk scene, did you have special admiration for some of them? Which 80’s artists/bands really get your attention? Is there any artist you would have loved to collaborate with at the time you were part of The Horn Section?
Please answer here Hall and Oate’s though I don’t classify them as funk, they were great musican/songwriters and producers. Starpoint,Cameo,Kashif,D-Train I would say from the 80’s. Most of my favorite artist and influences believe it or not are from the 70’s lol…
As we discussed last time Henry, France has an emerging 80’s boogie scene with live concerts taking place in Lyon every year. Since 2006, we had the opportunity to see artists like Leroy Burgess, Kashif, Howard Johnson, Melba Moore, James D Train Williams, Carl Carlton and many others. Would you be personally interested in performing in France if the occasion would come to you?
I would love to come over there and raise the roof off. I don’t wanna do the track thing though. I really want people to see and hear what we always wanted the fan to and that would have been, Me, Roger, 3 horns and probably a 5 piece rhythm section.
You told me, you were now very involved into gospel projects in Georgia. Does this mean you are no longer interested in making Soul/Funk music? Do you have any plan of making a new album with an 80’s flavor?
Fans keep approaching me about doing some more of that 80’s funk groove stuff and I just may put some new stuff together but I’m seriously considering incorporating that 80’s funk style into some of these Gospel tracks. Yup.
I would like to thank you for you time and availability. It was a pleasure interviewing you.
Thank you so much and I will always appreciate the wonderful people out there who enjoyed my music.. I love them much!