Brother (Petko Turner's & Florzinho's Revival Edit)

Victor Davies - Brother A Revival Edit By Florzinho & Mr Turner
Born and raised in East London, Victor Davies, the son of a West
African father and a British mother, grew up listening to artists
like Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield, but it was watching his
older brother's friend (and member of '80s soul group Central Line)
play guitar that truly inspired him. He got his first guitar at age
14 and began taking classical lessons, though his impatience with
reading music caused him to quit after about a year. He began to
explore the burgeoning soul/funk scene in London, and also played
in a variety of bands around town. In the early '90s Davies
received a publishing deal from Virgin, as well as Chrysalis (both
of which were later bought by EMI), but things fell through when
the label wanted him to write in specific, poppier styles and not
the soul- and funk-infused ones he preferred. Faced with this
dilemma, he quit writing songs for others and taught Thai
kickboxing (a sport he had studied since childhood) to help make
ends meet in order that he could start his own company, Afro
Gigolo, and began recording simple acoustic demos of his own work
and sending them to local independent labels. One of these, People
Records, liked what they heard so much they included one of these
demos, "Runaway Train" on a 1998 sampler. More singles followed,
and in 2001 Davies released his self-titled full-length debut on
Germany's Compost Records. Three years later Hoxton Popstars came
out on SPV Audiopharm. Davies' combination of acoustic instruments,
string and brass arrangements, and Latin, soul, jazz, and house
influences won him fans in Europe and Japan (where the single
"Fire" was the on the top of the charts for two weeks), though he
had yet to have the same amount of success in his own country.
Signed to V2 Records, however, his next album, Hear the Sound,
received a better response in England when it was released there in
2006. ~ Marisa Brown