Where are these music icons of the seventies?

Singer Whitney Houston (L) and Dionne Warwick perform onstage during the 2011 Pre-Grammy Gala & Salute to Industry Icons, with Clive Davis Honoring David Geffen at the Beverly Hilton on February 12, 2011. Photo/AFP 

In Summary

•  Where are these survivors of that golden era of black music and what are they up to? Are they still recording music?
• Here are some of the stars of yesteryear who put Soul and Rhythm and Blues on the map and, surprise, though aged and grey, they are all still recording and touring.

By BILL ODIDI
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If you lived through the 1970s and 80s, then you experienced the most influential era of soul music when the music created a phenomenon that swept right across the world.

 Where are these survivors of that golden era of black music and what are they up to? Are they still recording music?

Here are some of the stars of yesteryear who put Soul and Rhythm and Blues on the map and, surprise, though aged and grey, they are all still recording and touring.

 SMOKEY ROBINSON

 It is more than 50 years since William “Smokey” Robinson first sang for Motown Records. As a songwriter and lead singer with The Miracles, he was one of the architects of what came to be known as the Motown Sound.

 He penned songs for other stars on the label like the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops and was cited by John Lennon as an influence on the Beatles.

 In 1972, he announced his retirement as a performer to become the Vice President of Motown; a decision that he later said made him miserable.

 It was the label’s founder and his friend, Berry Gordy who put him out of his misery by sitting him down and saying: “Get a band, get into the studio, make a record and get the (expletive) out of here.”

 He returned to music and recorded one of his biggest career hits “Quiet Storm” in 1975. Smokey who is now 73 retains that high tenor voice and still tours performing classics like “Being With You” Tracks of My Tears and “Tears of a Clown and regaling crowds with memorable stories from his long career.

 Last year, Smokey signed a new deal with Verve records to make an album of duets taken from his more famous songs in a catalogue of more than 4,000 songs. This is his 29th album overall and is set for a February 2014 release.

 DIONNE WARWICK

She first came into our living rooms as the host of the hit 1980s American TV music show Solid Gold. By this time, Warwick was already a successful singer of hits like “Walk on By” “I Say a Little Prayer” “ Do You know the Way to San Jose” and “Don’t Make Me Over.”

Her biggest hit was the 1986 single “That’s What Friends Are for” a song that raised more than 3 million dollars for AIDS research and was recorded together with fellow stars, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Elton John.

When a young singer called Whitney Houston emerged in 1985, music fans were reminded that she came from a fine musical pedigree as the daughter of Cissy Houston and cousin to Dionne Warwick.

 Despite sales of 150 million records and the second highest number of U.S chart hits for any female artist in history, Warwick declared bankruptcy in 2013. She owes more than 10 million dollars in unpaid taxes.

 The 73-year-old’s recording career has not stalled, though, having just completed a new duet album “Feels So Good” that comes out in May this year featuring songs with contemporary artists like Alicia Keys and Ne Yo .

 With a nomination this year for Best Traditional Pop Vocal, Warwick could add to her five career Grammys when the annual event takes place this Sunday.

MILLIE JACKSON

Millie J, as many called her, was the queen of the Voice of Kenya Late Date radio show in the 1970s and early 80s. Music fans in Kenya got to watch her live at the height of her fame when she performed Nairobi in November 1978.

The adult-rated singer with a husky voice pulled no punches on her mostly sexually charged songs from albums like “Caught Up” its sequel “Still Caught Up” the provocatively titled “Feelin Bitchy” and “Royal Rapping” recorded with Isaac Hayes.

The outspoken performer is remembered for songs that were epics often with a lengthy spoken segments such as “If You’re Not back in Love in Monday” “Hurts So Good” and her remake of Luther Ingram’s song “If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right.”

In 1991, she created, financed, directed and starred in a stage musical “Young Man, Older Woman” the story of a post-menopausal woman and her young lover that was based on one of her previous recordings.

A new generation also embraced her when rapper Da Brat who called Millie J ‘the Mother of Hip Hop’, invited her to appear on a song.

Her daughter, Keisha Jackson, who was born in 1965, recorded two solo albums in the early 1990s and has since then largely been confined to providing background vocals on songs by Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Erykah Badu and Faith Evans.

Millie J has been touring around the U.S with her daily radio show based in Dallas, Texas and last October, she returned to perform in Nigeria, a country she last visited in1981.

Her last recording was an album called “Not For Church Folk” released on her own label, Weird Wreckuds in 2001.

BILLY OCEAN

Even the U.K has produced its share of soul music stars; the biggest of them is a man whose birthplace was the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Incidentally, his biggest hit was a song named Caribbean Queen that sold 1 million copies and won Billy Ocean the Grammy for Best R & B vocal in 1985.

The following year, he produced another big smash with “When the Going gets Tough (the tough get going)” from the movie Jewel of the Nile. He had two consecutive U.S No.1 singles with the ballad “There’ll be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry) and “Get Outta My Dreams; Get Into My Car.”

After taking time off from the music business to help his wife raise their three children, Billy Ocean returned with a world tour in 2007 accompanied by his daughter Cherie on backing vocals.

He had embraced Rastafarianism and his look had changed from the dark Afro hair of the 1980s to a mop of grey dreadlocks.