Shalamar

Formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s around the TV show Soul Train, Shalamar began as a studio project with the cover medley "Uptown Festival" and quickly evolved into an R&B and soul-funk vocal trio. After several lineup changes, the trio of Jody Watley, Jeffrey Daniel and Howard Hewett established Shalamar on the American funk and disco scene, signed to SOLAR Records and produced by Leon Sylvers III. The early albums Uptown Festival (1977) and Disco Gardens (1978) extended the disco aesthetic, while Big Fun (1979) and Three for Love (1980) affirmed a blend of funk, soul and pop with tight vocal harmonies and club-ready rhythms. Friends (1982) and The Look (1983) marked Shalamar's embrace of an early-80s, more electronic sound, combining R&B ballads with dance tracks that circulated widely between the United States and the United Kingdom; Jeffrey Daniel's dance performances helped popularize new street-dance styles. Heartbreak (1984), followed by Circumstantial Evidence (1987) and Wake Up (1990), accompanied a period of internal reshuffling before different incarnations of Shalamar continued to perform occasional concerts and tours, keeping the group in the memory of 1970s–1980s soul and funk.