Songoftheday 6/21/18 - Brother and sister together we'll make it through, someday a spirit will lift you and take you there...
from the album Everybody's Free (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day comes from dance music singer and self-dubbed "Queen Of Rave" Rozalla, who was born in the southern African nation of Zambia, where she was raised before moving to neighboring Zimbabwe as a teenager. She had a successful local career before jetting to England to reach the international market, where she was signed to the dance label Pulse-8. After an unnoticed first single, she reached the British chart for the first time in the spring of 1991 with "Faith (In The Power Of Love)", which was a minor hit at #65. The third release, though, did much, much better, as the techno classic "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" became Rozalla's breakthrough success. Written and produced by Tim Cox and Nigel Swanston (aka the Band Of Gypsies), it brought a strong, positive message and melodic accessibility to the budding techno genre, home to many a faceless sound-obsessed music full of angst, and it was easy to see why it was one of the first big pop crossovers of the genre - it used a theme used most in house music (and gospel, for that matter) of faith and good times, and it became a top ten hit in the UK. A year later, Epic Records was able to snatch her up for the American release (though I feel it may have done even better if it was released earlier)...
"Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" became Rozalla's first pop hit in the U.S., reaching the top-40 in August of 1992. The extended remixes of the song helped it top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart for a week in the following month. Internationally, the single reached the runner-up #2 spot in the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium, and hit the top ten in Switzerland (#3), Canada (#5), the UK (#6), Germany (#6), Sweden (#6), France (#8), Ireland (#8), and Denmark (#9). After the success of the track, "Faith" was re-released, where it climbed to #11 in the UK, and #14 in Ireland and the Netherlands (it would eventually reach the States, where it peaked at #4 on the dance chart). The fourth release from her debut, the pill-checking "Are You Ready To Fly", gave Rozalla her second American #1 dance hit, and while it missed the pop Hot 100, it got enough radio love to reach #63 on Billboard's Pop Airplay chart, and was a top ten hit in Switzerland (#6), and got to #11 in France and #14 in the UK. Lastly, the fifth and final single "Love Breakdown" was a top-40 hit in France at #33, while being a minor British success at #65. She also upped her profile greatly by being the opening act for Michael Jackson on his Dangerous tour in Europe.
In 1994, Rozalla returned with a cover of the disco classic "I Love Music" for the movie Carlito's Way. Her version was her second (and so far final) American pop chart hit at #76, while nabbed a third #1 Dance Club Play hit. It also got to #18 in the UK, and was one of four British pop hit from her sophomore album Look No Further. Another one, "You Never Love The Same Way Twice", unjustifiably missed the top ten on the Dance chart by a notch (#11) in the U.S. (it was a personal fave of mine, and got to #16 in the UK). In 1998, she hired the Band Of Gypsies again in her return to rave with her third set Coming Home. It wasn't a big success, but single "Don't Go, Lose It Baby" did manage to make it to #23 on the American dance chart. She guested on a couple of minor British hits, but her most recent exposure came from her triumphant club single "If You Say It Again", which rose to #5 on the Dance Club chart in Billboard in 2015.
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Here's Rozalla appearing live (to track, I think) on Top of the Pops in 1991...
and at a club in the Netherlands that same year...
In 1996, singer Quindon Tarver covered the song in a completely different direction for the movie adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. While it didn't reach the pop chart, the album went all the way to #2, giving it possibly the most exposure for the song in any incarnation..
The director of that film, Baz Luhrmann, subsequently took that recording and used it for a recording of his own, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", which was a #1 hit in the UK and Ireland, and went to #10 on the American Adult Top-40 radio chart, and #24 on the pop airplay list...
Because of the Romeo & Juliet exposure, Rozalla's "Everybody's Free" was re-released with new mixes, and hit #30 in the UK and #14 on the American dance chart...
House music guru Richard "Humpty" Vission put his spin on the record in 2000, and climbed to #18 on the U.S. dance club play list...
Five years later, dubstep act DNF used the song for a single they took to #78 in the UK...
In 2007, Austrian sample-heavy eurodance act Global Deejay chopped and pasted the single into a new product, and went to #7 Down Under in Australia (I know, Austrians in Australia...)
Four years later, she appeared on the British TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time, revising "Everybody's Free", losing to Shalamar...
Rozalla yet again re-released the song with David Anthony in 2014...
Australian singer Nat Conway auditioned for the X Factor Australia with the song, and while she didn't win overall (she came in 6th), she got a recording contract, and had the track remade in 2016 with gay wunderkind MNEK producing...
Here's a fresh take on the song from Rozalla with a live band at a gay pride event in the Netherlands also in 2016...
The same year, drum and bass act Chase And Status used "Everybody's Free" as the foundation for their single "Spoken Word" with George The Poet, which went to #78 in the UK...
Pop-dance queen Kylie Minogue included the song in the expanded Snow Queen version of her holiday release Kylie Christmas. She performed the track on the X Factor in 2017, which in various versions was a fan of the song, with the top two placers Matt Terry and future Eurovision star Saara Aalto...
Finally, here's Rozalla appearing at Pride in Barcelona in 2017...
Up tomorrow: We get "familiar with" a lady who ruled contemporary R&B in the early 90s...
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