Xavier
Eight-piece funk group featured Ernest ‘Xavier’
Smith (lead guitar/bass/lead vocals), Ayanna Little (lead vocals), Tim
Williams (drums), Ralph Hunt Jnr (bass), Jeffrey Mitchell (guitar), Lyburn
Downing (percussion), Emonie Branch and Chuck Hughes (vocals). Smith started
in the mid—60s as bass player with the Coasters. Between 1969 and 1973 he
joined Wilson Pickett’s backing band the Midnight Movers and later worked
with Isaac Hayes and the Temptations. In the late 70s he moved to Hartford,
Connecticut, where he transformed local group the Shades Of Directions into
Xavier and LUV (Life’s Universal Vibration). The group joined Liberty,
shortened their name and released their first single ‘Work That Sucker To
Death’. This dance record with a positive message also featured Smith’s
old friend Bootsy Collins, and George Clinton. The record went into the
R&B Top 10 and made the UK charts in 1982. Their follow-up ‘Do It To The
Max’ also reached the R&B chart and their album Point
Of Pleasure narrowly missed the Top 100, yet despite this encouraging
start the group were not to chart again.
Album: Point
Of Pleasure (1982).