Eric Roberts - The Next In Line

In 1976, when we had a big disco hit in the USA with Barbara Pennington, "Twenty Four Hours A Day", I met the promotion lady from United Artists in Los Angeles, who promoted the disco twelve inch. Her name was Suzanne Hayden, and she introduced me to her husband Tom Hayden, who was known in America as the greatest disco promotion guy in existence. By 1978, he had his own record imprint with Colombia and had a big hit with Patrick Hernandez "Born To Be Alive". Then in 1979 he commissioned me to produce two records for him, an album on Susan Wells, sister of James Wells, and a 12 inch single on a very flambuoyant camp black American singer from Los Angeles, called Eric Roberts, who was the nearest thing to Sylvester. Tom Hayden was also the promoter on my number one album on the US disco charts, James Wells "My Claim To Fame".
Something went wrong somewhere. It was the year that Disco was dead in the eyes of the American public. Consequently although they were finished, neither of the Susan Wells or the Eric Roberts records ever came out. Jump forward eight years when I had my own disco company called Nightmare Records. I put out a series called Nightmare Gold, rare releases of all the unreleased classics I had recorded in the 1970s and that for some reason or other had never been released. Eric Roberts' song built up quite a following amongst the disco high energy crowd. But until today there has never been a video of it. I remember those golden days back in 1979 at the Copa with DJ Chris Lucas who loved it to bits and played it to death at his Earls Court nightclub. I'm especially pleased to finally have this on video. I made one further record with Eric, a cover version of The Next In Line for my friend Kev Roberts on his label Electricity. Eric died of AIDS shortly afterwards. Although he was from Los Angeles he was living in London and I saw quite a lot of him. He used to perform in musicals in London's West End and he used to see me regularly when I was DJing in Heaven. Anyway, a very very sad loss and I miss him. We also recorded a version of the northern soul classic by Hoagie Lands, "The Next In Line" and I hope this video will allow him to be remembered more for his short contribution to the Northern Soul scene.