1) a British musical group led by William Topley from the 1990s whose music featured elements of blues, gospel, soul, and rock; they had one UK Top 40 hit before disbanding in 2000. 2) a British band based in Bristol who subsequently changed their name to Get The Blessing. 3) An 80s Goth band from Pennsylvania, US. 1. The Blessing was a British musical group led by William Topley, whose music featured elements of blues, gospel, soul, and rock. The group released two albums and had one UK Top...
1) a British musical group led by William Topley from the 1990s whose music featured elements of blues, gospel, soul, and rock; they had one UK Top 40 hit before disbanding in 2000.
2) a British band based in Bristol who subsequently changed their name to Get The Blessing.
3) An 80s Goth band from Pennsylvania, US.
1. The Blessing was a British musical group led by William Topley, whose music featured elements of blues, gospel, soul, and rock. The group released two albums and had one UK Top 40 hit before disbanding. The Blessing was founded in London in 1987, initially acting mostly as a blues and reggae cover band. The group (William Topley, vocals; Luke Brighty, guitar; Kevin Hime-Knowles, bass, Mike Westergaard, keyboards, Simon Hanson, drums) eventually began writing its own material and recorded in keyboardist Mike Westergaard's studio, eventually landing a recording contract in 1989 with MCA Records. Their debut, Prince of the Deep Water, followed in 1991, with the lead single "Highway 5" reaching #42 on the UK Singles Chart. The single was remixed and re-released at the end of the year, and early in 1992 re-charted, this time peaking at #30. Prince of the Deep Water featured guest musicians Nicky Hopkins, Richard Tee, Jeff Porcaro, Rickie Lee Jones, and Bruce Hornsby, and went on to sell 125,000 copies. For the follow-up full-length, Locusts & Wild Honey, Jimmy Miller was called in to produce three tracks, though he died before the album's release. One of the tracks he produced, "Soul Love", was released as the album's lead single, peaking at #73 on the UK Singles Chart. Due to the high cost of recording the group's first album and restructuring at label MCA, the band was seen as not sufficiently commercially viable and lost support from the label, splintering soon after. Topley secured a contract with Mercury a few years later as a solo artist.
2. Get The Blessing (formerly The Blessing) were formed in 2000 in Bristol, UK to share (in their words) "a fascination with improvised music, a pathological distrust of chords and a passion for north-african cuisine". The band is made up of Jim Barr (bass), Clive Deamer (drums), Pete Judge (trumpet) and Jake McMurchie (saxophone); the former two are most famous as Portishead's rhythm section. They started out playing the music of Ornette Coleman but began slowly to make a noise of their own, and a turning point came in 2006 when they finally got in the studio and a new sound emerged almost overnight. Their new approach has much in common bands such as EST, Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland. They released their debut album, All Is Yes in 2008.
3. A Pennsylvania, USA Goth band that released Eternity in 1987 on Emotional Records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
