Helen Rogers

Helen Rogers attended the prestigious Italia Conti Academy for performing arts and nurtured dreams of becoming an actress, appearing in music videos for 70's pop stars Gary Numan and Godley andCreme of 10cc.  However, her love of music in general, and Lovers Rock in particular led her at the age of 18 to independent record label, One Stop Music, where alongside Eric Gordon, Natural Touch and Spy (Investigators) she began what would become an exciting and varied career in the music industry.

Helen's first recording at the age of 19 was with reggae Legend Mr Ken Parker doing backing vocals on his album 'Sacred Songs' around the same time she did her first live performances in South London with a band that would evolve into reggae chart toppers Natural Touch.

In 1982 she joined Brit Funk band Direct Drive who loved her Lovers Rock vocal style and used it to great effect on their songs 'In The Middle of Spring', 'Pass the Paper' and the NO 1 Soul Chart hit 'Anything' The band signed to Polydor records due to the runaway success of this song.

Paul Hardcastle, who was a former member of Direct Drive had noticed Helen's vocals and began to invite her to do session work for him. Notably on his version of Junior Walkers 'Walk in the Night'and his remix of Third World' s 'Now That We've Found Love' both of which charted nationally.

Helen also sang on comedian Rory Bremner's spoof version of Paul's massive hit '19' which charted nationally and led to appearances for Helen on those great old programmes Top of The Pops and the Wogan show.

In the mid 80's Helen was very active on the London live and session circuit working with bands including  East London's funk outfit 7th Heaven and South London's Lee Fardon also writing with Direct Drive's Pete Quinton two of Pete's songs featuring Helen on vocals appeared on the soundtrack of the movie 'Sammy and Rosie Get Laid' and beginning a long standing musical relationship with Black Steel which eventually resulted in an album of reggae covers of choice pop hits called Homage produced by Lindel Lewis.

In the early 90's Helen again began to work with Paul Hardcastle who invited her to join his Jazzmasters project. This was  a hugely successful  venture throughout the 90's in both the United States and Japan, with songs co-written by Paul and Helen hitting multiple number one spots in both countries.

They also collaborated on his eponymous project which ran simultaneously to the Jazzmasters.

In 2004 Helen decided to take the lead and begin a musical project this turned out to be a departure in style and evolved into the 'Eyes Like Midnight' EP,  which remained a best seller on CD Baby for many months she also performed live around London with co-writer and guitarist Tony Qunta.

The 00's also became a time when Helen wanted to give something back and share all the knowledge she had accumulated in the music biz so she began to run vocal workshops and put on musical events which raised money for charities like Kids Company, Barnardo's and Oxfam. One of her events resulted in 5 artists being shortlisted for MTV'S Get Seen Get Heard competition in collaboration with OXJAM one of those singers IFE made it to the final and was filmed in MTV'S documentary of the venture.

In the meantime Helen had remained good friends with Direct Drive and as so often happens in life things were coming full circle. Not only did Helen and Direct Drive start to think of writing and recording after many years but Helen's yearning to be singing Lovers Rock again was realised when she and producer Lindel Lewis decided to record an album of select covers and original songs.

Direct Drive therefore released their first new single in 25 years 'Latin Satin' in June 2011 and Helen and Lindel Lewis are recording a Lovers Rock album  to be released in 2012. 'Pass The Paper' was No.1 on CD Baby's smooth reggae chart for three weeks and 'Let Be Your Angel' got into the itunes top 40 in Luxembourg , also both songs will be featured on the new album......Watch this space!!