Music: Silk - Always & Forever

Always And Forever is not a phrase usually associated with a fickle music business, especially in recent times when one-hit wonders and manufactured artists have been especially prevalent. But for Silk, one of the few vocal groups to breakthrough in the hip-hop era, the phrase applies not only to their own longevity--seventeen years and counting with the current line-up featuring the four original members who have been together throughout--but also to the quality of their music which features finely crafted harmony singing and lyrics that deal with timeless issues of love, romance and sex. With the release of their seventh album Always And Forever, their debut release on Shanachie Entertainment on October 17th, Silk brings their vocal artistry to a hand-picked selection of songs that have inspired them as simultaneous homage to artists who they respect and musical statement of the ultimate quality of Silk's music.

"It all comes full circle on this album," relates Gary Glenn. "A lot of these songs were ones we were already familiar with so it was easy for us to step in and emulate people we have a lot of respect for. It's a chance to show off our own artistry. If someone has the audacity to do a Michael Jackson number or a Prince tune and do it well, or to really do justice to"The Secret Garden" , then they walk away with respect from the audience. That's what we want."

The album, which features Silk's interpretations of major hits by Blue Magic, Switch, Shalamar, Prince, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Heatwave and others, simply builds on something Silk had already been doing.

""We've done a re-make on almost every album anyway so it was like time to do this--a full serving of what we've been doing throughout. Like (Blue Magic's classic) "Sideshow", we've been doing that in our shows and people love it. We were doing (Switch's) "There'll Never Be" at shows and people start to "step" when we do it...and it's a beautiful thing. It even happened in Aurora, Colorado, which is the last place I thought people would be steppin'!"

Silk
Always & Forever
Shanachie Entertainment
October 17th
myspace.com/silk