
Soul folk of a certain vintage will have fond memories of TERRY RONALD’S MCA 1991 underground anthem ‘What The Child Needs’. Hailing from South London, Terry harboured musical ambition form an early age and after fronting a few bands he found himself signed to MCA Records who invested big bucks in his debut album, ‘Roma’. Critically acclaimed, it spawned a couple of European hits but a non-album single ‘What The Child Needs’ became a massive club hit. With vocals from Linda Lewis and Sylvia Mason, it filled floors everywhere and still retains that potential.
Since then Terry has moved into production and he’s worked with people like Kylie Minogue, St Etienne, Lulu, Boyzone and Sheena Easton. He’s also penned countless songs; many recorded by big names in the pop and soul fields and worked in theatre and TV production. Busy man? Sure but he’s even found time to write a novel. In 2011 his first novel ‘Becoming Nancy’ was published and the book was shortlisted for the 2012 Polari First Book Prize, and there’s talk of it being turned into a stage musical.
But it’s his tune ‘What The Child Needs’ that will forever secure his reputation in the soul world and the good news is the tune is soon to be re-available in two brand, spanking new formats! DIG Productions have licensed the song and brought in the mighty Tom Moulton to remix it and the result is a wonderful slab of irresistible retro soul that is guaranteed to fill floors. The second “new” mix of the song is actually a re-tooling of the Soul City mix that was on the original B-side. The new tweak comes courtesy of Nigel Lowis who has simply freshened up the original giving it a contemporary vibe while retaining all the soul of the 1991 version.
Both mixes will be released on 29th March 2015