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mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

From Pete Mitchell Blog:

The story of one of the biggest northern soul stars Dean Parrish

Presented by Pete Mitchell to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 8-9pm on January 12th 2008

The story of soul singer Dean Parrish is unique. For most of his career people thought he was a black American soul singer from Detroit or Chicago, I recently found out that he is a New York Italian with a powerful voice. How his thin frame and quiet demeanor can produce such a huge vocal performance, we will have to leave it to the scientists to work out. Dean quit his singing career in 1967 and astonishingly went on to play with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley; he even appeared in the internationally acclaimed HBO series The Sopranos. As far as Parrish was concerned his short recording career did not amount to much and he had almost forgotten about it, well it was thirty five years since he last sang. Unbeknown to him his records were more popular than they had ever been on the other side of the world. His recordings 'Tell Her', 'Determination' and the anthem 'I'm on My Way', had turned him into a northern soul star. His vinyl recordings were selling for hundreds of pounds and he has shifted in the region of a million records over the years. As all this was happening, Dean was blissfully unaware of his success, until a few years back when he was tracked down to Staten Island in New York. He was dumbfounded and amazed when he finally walked out in front of 1,000 screaming fans for the first time in decades in Cleethorpes; they all knew the words to every one of his songs. Dean recently recorded a Paul Weller composition 'Left Right and Center' with Lord Large, which was released on Acid Jazz. His very first album, a compilation of his amazing recordings called Determination, hits the shops in the New Year. His amazing story can be heard on BBC Radio 2 in January.