Monday, March 26, 2012

Music Monday: Eternal

A retro turn in this week's Music Monday, as we recall SE London's greatest ever girl group (at least in the soul category - we can talk about Shampoo another time).

Eternal was conceived of by manager Denis Ingoldsby in 1992 as a UK version of En Vogue. He put together sisters Easther and Verna Bennett, with Kelle Bryan and Louise Nurding (the latter of whom Ingoldsby had met in London club The Milk Bar).


Three of the four were from South London - the  Bennett sisters were from Croydon, and were steeped in gospel music via their family's church. Nurding was born in Lewisham Hospital and grew up in Eltham - she went to St.Thomas More RC Primary School in Appleton Road. In fact her grandad had a stall on Lewisham market where she sometimes helped out.

The original line up of the band only lasted until 1995 when Nurding left the band to go solo (she later became known of course as Louise Redknapp); Bryan left in 1998 after a split with the Bennett sisters.

Just a Step from Heaven is one of their better earlier tracks, nice slice of soulful pop plus the slightly surreal sight of the band cavorting to Black Panther Party/Public Enemy imagery (dancers in berets and combats, clenched fists etc):

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"I Wanna Be the Only One", a duet with BeBe Winans, was a UK number one in 1997 and a bona fide 1990s soul classic:

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