The new single from Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth is out now: a sublime cover of Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’, originally on Heron’s 1971 Flying Dutchman album ‘Pieces Of A Man’. 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. Valentine says that he’s always been drawn to message songs. He remembers witnessing the civil rights protests through the Deep South in the United States, the Kent State University shootings in 1970, and the Vietnam War and its devastating aftermath on many military veterans returning to civilian life. “The music on my album speaks to me,” Valentine says, “I think this is the most important music that I’ve done yet in my life.”

Album Features Accompaniment From Theo Croker, Pino Pallodino, Jeff Parker, Immanuel Wilkins & Many More 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. 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/Gart, Galen. First Pressings: The History of Rhythm and Blues: 1950. At Google Books. Retrieved 8 August 2019. 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. 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 . 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. 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.

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. 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. Billy’s songwriting partnership with Phil Roy andThiele, Jr. also led him to singing demos for the cream of LA based songwriters, such as Gerry Goffin, Burt Bacharach and Will Jennings. “I was singing demos for writers, who were trying to plug songs for Michael Bolton, Al Green, or Bonnie Raitt” Valentine recalls. “I started to truly make a living singing demos.” Hoffmann, Frank. Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Hip-hop, p. 143. Infobase Publishing, 2005. At Google Books. Retrieved 8 August 2019. 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.”

Tracklist

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 . Produced by Bob Thiele, Jr. – the son of Flying Dutchman Records’ founder, Bob Thiele – the album features an array of jazz luminaries that included tenor saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, trumpeter Theo Croker, bassist Linda May Han Oh, guitarist Jeff Parker, vibraphonist Joel Ross, percussionist Alex Acuña, pianist/keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Pino Palladino, and drummer James Gadsen, among others. After earning some on-the-road experience singing with the Young-Holt Trio and touring with the original road company of The Wiz, Billy and his brother John were signed to a deal at A&M Records to record as The Valentine Brothers. While The Valentine Brothers never became household names, they did have some fairly successful R&B chart hits, including the Reaganomics-critiquing “Money’s Too Tight (To Mention),” and the crate digger quiet storm classic “Lonely Nights.” Valentine began recording the album right before the coronavirus pandemic. As the sessions proceeded, the world erupted in protest after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department. “Making the album suddenly became very cathartic,” Valentine recalls, “The pandemic was one thing. Then to see what happened to George Floyd – that just broke my heart.” Today, Valentine shares his powerful yet wounded take on Gil-Scott Heron’s “Home Is Where The Hatred Is,” the late artist’s rendition of a junkie’s lament. Listen to “Home Is Where The Hatred Is” here.

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.) William A. Valentine (born December 16, 1925), also known as Billy Valentine and Billy Vee, [1] is an American blues, R&B and jazz pianist and singer. The three album heralding singles still have the power to disturb, notably the version of ‘My People…Hold On’ which delivers a powerful vocal supported by biting guitar work and an eerie vibraphone break while Mayfield’s ‘Darker Than Blue’ is just a beautiful song.After earning some on-the-road experience singing with the Young-Holt Trio and touring with the original road company of T he Wiz, Billy and his brother John were signed to a deal at A&M Records to record as The Valentine Brothers. While The Valentine Brothers never became household names, they did have some fairly successful R&B chart hits, including the Reaganomics- critiquing “Money’s Too Tight (To Mention),” and the crate digger quiet storm classic “Lonely Nights.” The jazz sensibilities within his own vocal, interpretative prowess and within the splendid arrangements will certainly catapult Valentine in a head-turning late-career renaissance, especially given the acclaim the Los Angeles’ West Coast Get Down and Jazz Is Dead scenes are receiving. a b Lord, Tom. The Jazz Discography, Volume 11, pp. 1366; 1524. Lord Music Reference, 1996. At Google Books. Retrieved 8 August 2019.