Biography

Jeffrey's story

Singing and music has always been a part of my life. People who know my family have always commented that I was born to sing and that I couldn’t help but become a singer because both my mother and father had great voices. I grew up as the oldest of five children with me being the only boy. Just like many of today’s black singers my musical background began in church singing gospel music. I’ve been singing as far back as I can remember. I grew up listening to Gospel groups and artists such as The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, James Cleveland, Andre Crouch and Edwin Hawkins. I was also influenced by the R&B and Soul singers of the 60’s and 70’s such as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and many many others.

My talent as well as my sisters were fine-tuned at very early ages by our mother who taught us not only to sing as lead vocals but also background harmonies. A great deal of my childhood was spent singing in the Gospel choirs of our church and performing at weddings, Gospel Festivals and also the concert choir in High School where I also received classical music training.

My professional career began by coincidence or was it fate?I worked as a disc jockey in some of the largest Discotheques in Hessen, Germany, but I wasn’t the typical Disc Jockey just mixing the music and partying. I would also sing every night which at the time was unheard of. I was invited to perform at the City Festival in Kassel, Germany which had about 3000 people in attendance. Afterwards I was approached by an Englishman who told me he had a project that he was working on and could use my voice.
I was invited to a studio in Cologne, Germany in 1985 and then recorded the remake of a Johnny Wakelin song called “In Zaire“. It was a hit! Nine weeks later I was performing in front of 22.000 people on the same ticket with other hit groups including the singing duo known as Modern Talking, and landed in the top of the German and many European charts. It’s true, my first performance was at the Martin-Schleyer-Hall in Stuttgart, Germany as the Lead singer of the group Round One. We were very popular and toured all over Europe playing large and smaller concerts, and making Television and Radio appearances.

I left the group in 1986 and recorded another remake of McFadden and Whiteheads “Ain’t no stopping us now” as a solo artist, but by this time I had become very unhappy due to contractual and creative disagreements. A lot of people still ask me how could you give that all up? The answer is easy: It stopped being fun. I was young and inexperienced but I learned a lot. Over the last year I’ve been performing in Germany. In 2009 I moved to The Netherlands where I love the atmosphere and the energy that I can feel in this country. In may 2011 I moved back to Kassel. Thankfully I now have a second chance to let people feel what I feel as I sing and perform.