Face '83: Fonzi Thornton

We hit here a slightly fallow patch - given that it's virtually impossible for find Ruby Turner's Every Soul, or June Pointer's Don't Mess With Bill, online (there's a shit remix of one of the latter), let's give The Face the benefit of the doubt, and assume the originals were so glorious they ascended to heaven. 7-5.

Then there's David Bowie's Let's Dance. Not the greatest piece of Bowie's work - though, clearly, not the worst by quite a distance. Erring on the side of generosity, let's applaud The Face for supporting Bowie when a lot of popular opinion had written him off, shall we? 8-5.

Which brings us to Fonzi Thornton. A man whose Wikipedia entry kicks off with a great list of the people for whom he has provided backing vocals, while pushing the times he was at the front of the stage to the bottom of the page.

Mind you, all that work helping out others paid off when he came to make The Leader (the whole album is the Face's choice); he pulled in a bunch of favours and wound up with Luther Vandross, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Jocelyn Brown and Kashif fleeting across the surface of the record.

It's possible that the starry cast blinded The Face to the shortcomings of the record. Thornton has gone on to appear on more than 120 further albums; only on one other occasion did he get top billing.

The Face 8; History 6.



[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]