Nick Straker (born Nicholas Bailey) is a London-born musician, who had

hits Hits or H.I.T.S. may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * '' H.I.T.S.'', 1991 album by New Kids on the Block * ''...Hits'' (Phil Collins album), 1998 * ''Hits'' (compilation series), 1984–2006; 2014, a British compilation album s ...

in Europe and the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Career

Straker joined his first band, called Stonehenge, in 1969. The band changed its name in 1971 to Matumbi,

Dennis Bovell Dennis Bovell (born 22 May 1953) is a Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer, based in the United Kingdom. He was a member of a progressive rock group called Stonehenge, who later changed name and became the British r ...

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

band who had signed to

Trojan Records Trojan Records is a British record label founded by Jamaican Duke Reid, Lee Gopthal and Chris Blackwell in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. Th ...

, but Straker left in 1974. Along with his friend, guitarist Dave McShera, Straker joined Pete Hammond (bass) and Phil Towner (drums) in a dance band playing working men's clubs and weddings. They then met American

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

singer Limmie Snell, and the band became Limmie Funk Limited with Andy Gierus on guitar. They played

discotheque A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighting displays, and ...

s around the country and toured the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and Sweden in early 1978.

Tony Mansfield Anthony Charles Mansfield (born 19 January 1955) is an English songwriter, musician and record producer. He first gained prominence as the frontman of the synth-pop band New Musik, which he formed in 1977. Throughout his career, Mansfield has ...

, later the lead singer and songwriter with

New Musik New Musik were an English synth-pop Musical ensemble, group active from 1977 to 1982. Led by Tony Mansfield, they achieved success in 1980 with the top 20 single "Living by Numbers" which was followed up with the top 40 hits "This World of Wate ...

, joined, originally as roadie, but eventually he and Straker formed a collaboration that led to the

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

of a successful UK single, "A Walk in the Park", in 1979. A year later, the track was re-recorded and released, and made number 20 in the UK Singles Chart. The

Nick Straker Band The Nick Straker Band were an English pop music group from London, England, led by musician and vocalist Nick Straker, who had earlier gained experience by playing in Dennis Bovell's Matumbi, a dub and roots reggae band. Several members of th ...

released a few more singles, but none had the success of "A Walk in the Park" in the UK, although " A Little Bit of Jazz" reached number 1 on the U.S.

Hot Dance Club Play The Dance Club Songs (also known as National Disco Action, Hot Dance/Disco Club Play, and Hot Dance Club Play) was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by ''Billboard'' magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the mos ...

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...

in 1981. Straker re-recorded "A Walk in the Park" in 1987; the new version was produced by

Stock Aitken Waterman Stock Aitken Waterman (abbreviated as SAW and also known as the Hit Factory) are an English songwriting and record production trio consisting of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman. The trio had great success from the mid-1980s throug ...

, and charted at only number 82 in the UK.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Musicians from London English male songwriters English record producers English rock keyboardists English rock guitarists {{England-musician-stub