This voice won the hearts of fans immediately after the release of the first album in 1984. The girl was so individual and unusual that her name became the name of the Sade group.
The English group "Sade" ("Sade") was formed in 1982. Its members included:
- Shade Adu - vocals;
- Stuart Matthewman - brass, guitar
- Paul Denman - bass guitar
- Andrew Hale - keyboards
- Dave Early - drums
- Martin Dietman - percussion.
The band played beautiful, melodic jazz-funk music. They were distinguished by good arrangements and exotic, insinuating vocals of the singer penetrating right into the heart.
At the same time, her singing style does not go beyond the traditional soul, and acoustic guitar passages are quite typical for art rock and rock ballads.
Helen Folasade Adu was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her father was Nigerian, an economics professor at the university, and her mother was an English nurse. The couple met in London while he was studying at the LSE and they moved to Nigeria shortly after their marriage.
Childhood and youth of the founder of the Sade group
When their daughter was born, none of the locals called her by an English name, and the shortened version of Folasade stuck. Then, when she was four, her parents separated and her mother brought Sade Ada and her older brother back to England, where they originally lived with their grandparents near Colchester, Essex.
Sade grew up listening to American soul music, especially Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway and Bill Withers. As a teenager, she attended a Jackson 5 concert at the Rainbow Theater in Finsbury Park. “I was more fascinated by the audience than everything that happened on stage. They attracted children, mothers with children, old people, whites, blacks. I was very touched. This is the audience I have always aspired to.”
Music was not her first choice as a career. She studied fashion at St Martin's School of Art in London and only started singing after two old school friends with a young band approached her to help them with vocals.
To her surprise, she found that although singing made her nervous, she enjoyed writing songs. Two years later, she overcame her stage fright.
“I used to go on stage with pride, as if shaking. I was horrified. But I was determined to try my best, and decided that if I sing, I will sing as I say, because it is important to be yourself.”
At first, the group was called Pride, but after signing a contract with the Epic recording studio, it was renamed at the insistence of producer Robin Millar. The debut album, which was also called "Sade", the group sold 6 million records and was at the peak of popularity.
The arrival of the popularity of the team
The musicians held a series of triumphant concerts at the famous Ronnie Scott Jazz Club. The tour to Mentre and the performance in the show "Liv Aid" were successful. The new Sade albums were no less significant success, and the vocalist was recognized as the "Best" color "singer in Britain." This is how Billboard magazine described Sade Adu in 1988.
During the release of the first album Diamond Life in 1984, the real life of Sade Adu was not at all like the life of a show business star. She lived in a converted fire station in Finsbury Park, north London, with her then-boyfriend, journalist Robert Elmes. There was no heating.
Because of the constant cold, she even had to change clothes in bed. The toilet, which was covered with ice in winter, was located on the fire escape. The tub was in the kitchen: “We were cold, mostly.”
In the late 1980s, Sade was constantly on tour, moving from place to place. For her, this still remains a fundamental point. “If you just make TV or video, then you become a tool for the recording industry.
All you are doing is selling a product. It's when I get on stage with the band and we play that I know people love music. I'm feeling it. This feeling overwhelms me.”
Personal life of the soloist of the group Sade
But not only at the beginning of her career, but throughout all the years of her creative life, Sade put her personal life above her professional career. During the 80s and 90s, she released only three studio albums of new material.
Her marriage to Spanish director Carlos Scola Pliego in 1989; the birth of her child in 1996 and her move from urban London to rural Gloucestershire, where she lived with her partner, required a lot of her time and attention. And this is absolutely fair. “You can only grow as an artist as long as you allow yourself the time to grow as a person,” says Sade Adu.
In 2008, Sade gathers musicians in the countryside of southwest England. Here is the studio of the legendary Peter Gibriel. To record a new album, the musicians drop everything they do and come to the UK. This was the first meeting since the end of the Lovers rock tour in 2001.
Bassist Paul Spencer Denman is from Los Angeles. There he led his son's punk band Orange. Guitarist and saxophonist Stuart Matthewman interrupted his work on the film's soundtrack in New York, and London keyboardist Andrew Hale withdrew from his A&R consultation.
During the two-week sessions at Real World, Sade sketched out material for a new album, which she felt was probably her most ambitious to date. In particular, the sonic layering and percussive power of the title track, Soldier Of Love, sounded completely different from anything they'd recorded before.
According to Andrew Hale: “The big question for all of us in the beginning was do we still want to make this kind of music and can we still get along as friends?”. Soon they received a weighty affirmative answer.
Sade's most successful album
In February 2010, Sade's sixth most successful studio album, Soldier Of Love, was released. He became a sensation. For Sade herself, as a songwriter, this album was the answer to a simple question of the integrity and authenticity of her work.
“I only record when I feel like I have something to say. I'm not interested in releasing music just to sell something. Sade is not a brand.”
Sade group today
Today, the musicians of the Sade group are again busy with their projects. The singer herself lives in her own house in the capital of Great Britain. She leads a secretive life and protects her friends and relatives from the paparazzi.
Whether she will bring the musicians together again and record another masterpiece is a matter of time. If Sade has something to say, she will definitely tell the whole world about it.
