Jill Saward of Shakatak (2024)

In this edition of the Chatterbox redux Podcast, Sue & Nick are joined by Jill Saward of Shakatak.

Here she talks about the groups amazing history and the fact that they are not on the retro circuit as they have never split up. As of 2023 Shakatak have four original members.

Jill shares many fantastic anecdotes, including the fact that Shakatak members including herself sang and played on those old Top of The Pops albums from the late 1970's and very early 1980's. Those of us over a certain age will remember those albums on the old Hallmark label, famous for not having the original artists but had songs on them were or had recently been in the UK singles chart

Wikipdedia says Shakatak are an English jazz-funk band founded in 1980 by Bill Sharpe, Nigel Wright, Roger Odell and Keith Winter. An initial white label release, "Steppin", caught the attention of record labels. The band's name was created by them and derived from the name of a record store in Soho, London called "Record Shack".

Shakatak have enjoyed 14 UK hit singles. The group is still active and popular throughout the world, particularly in Japan and the Far East, and generally produce a new album every two years on JVC Records.

It was the release of the 1981 single "Easier Said Than Done" that gave the band the radio exposure needed for their first top-twenty hit. This record introduced their instrumental-unison vocal sound to a wider audience, and the track stayed in the UK Singles Chart for seventeen weeks. The follow-up, "Night Birds" (1982), was their first single to reach the top ten and it also peaked in Australia at number 92. The album of the same name gave Shakatak their first gold album, entering at number four and remaining in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. Jill Saward (formerly of Fusion Orchestra, Brandy and Citizen Gang) became their sole lead singer to make Shakatak's fifth album, Down on the Street (1984).

In the 1990s, the band achieved success in the US when their 1992 album Open Your Eyes went to No 1 in the contemporary jazz charts.

Still active, the band has released a number of albums in the 2000's. Guitarist Alan Wormald died in 2023, and was replaced by returning original guitarist Keith Winters.