Errol Brown, velvety smooth voice of Hot Chocolate, dies at 71
HOT Chocolate singer Errol Brown has died at the age of 71.
The song-writer, best known for the hits You Sexy Thing, It Started With a Kiss and Every 1’s a Winner, passed away at his home in the Bahamas of liver cancer.
With his distinctive moustache and shaved head, Brown entered the Top 10 with the band in 1970 and went on to have more than 20 chart successes – many of them written by the father of two.
Princess Diana was such a fan of his smooth vocals she hired the band in 1981 for a party at Buckingham Palace before her wedding.
The band split up in the mid-80s but had a second unexpected burst of fame again when You Sexy Thing featured in the hit 1997 film The Full Monty.
Brown is survived by wife Ginette – who
‘Charismatic performer’
inspired the song – and two daughters, Colette and Leonie. Friends last night described him as a ‘ charismatic performer’ and a ‘gentleman’.
Brown was educated privately thanks to the extraordinary sacrifice made by his mother, who l eft Jamaica for Britain in 1953 and sent for her son when he was 12. Working as a shorthand typist she saved enough to buy a house, remove her son from a secondary modern and put him through private school in West Hampstead, London.
Brown once said her unrewarded efforts gave him the chance to mix with ‘guys who wanted to be prime ministers, lawyers and doctors’. Sadly, she died of cancer aged 38 when he was just 19.
He also spoke of his deep hurt at returning to Jamaica to look for his father – only to find that he had died some years earlier.
The singer – a Tory supporter – put his success down to the combination of his black roots and his upbringing in Britain, where fame and money enabled him to buy a smart Surrey home, a Rolls-Royce and a Porsche.
He said: ‘Basically it was the combination of the cultures in me – black and white – that really became the basis of my music.’ Hot Chocolate got their big break in 1969 after they recorded a reggae version of John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance – and sent it to him. Incredibly, the Beatle loved it – and wanted to sign the band. It led to a deal with producer Mickie Most and three decades of hits. They became the only band to have a song in the UK charts every year from 1970 to 1984.
Initially called The Hot Chocolate Band by a girl at their record company, they later shortened their name. Brown left in 1985, spending time as a self- confessed ‘couch potato’ at his home in Esher, Surrey.
But he was pulled back into the public eye by The Full Monty. Brown was given an Ivor Novello award for his outstanding contribution to British music in 2004. He was made an MBE in 2003 and went on a farewell tour in 2009.
Among those paying tribute last night was singer Beverley Knight who said: ‘Errol Brown was such a charismatic performer.’
His manager, Phil Dale, said the singer was ‘a wonderful gentleman’. He added: ‘His greatest legacy is that his music will live on.’