Renowned rock singer, guitarist and multiple hit songwriter Russ Ballard has revisited one of his former glories by rerecording his famous hit ‘New York Groove’, along with a new music video, both out now via Frontiers Music Srl.
Russ Ballard commented on the track, stating: “I wrote the song in 1975 and it was a very quick process, written and recorded in about three hours. I had down time in the studio, no song – just a title, ‘New York Groove’ and an idea to play it to a Bo Diddley rhythm.”
Reaching the UK top ten when first a hit single by glam rock band Hello back in 1975, amongst cover versions by many other artists standouts include Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley on his debut album and a more recent rendition by Sweet pairing it with Alicia Key’s ‘Empire State of Mind’.
Ballard is simply one of the most renowned and gifted songwriters in pop and rock music. His musical career started when he was only 14 years old and he wrote a tune, that was recorded by The Shadows, appearing on their album The Sound Of The Shadows, back in 1964.
During the 70s and 80s, his songs ruled the airwaves and the list of hits is pretty much endless. From ‘Since You Been Gone’ (Rainbow), ‘God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You’ (Argent, then later Kiss), ‘So You Win Again’ (Hot Chocolate), ‘New York Groove’ (Hello, then Ace Frehley), ‘You Can Do Magic’ (America), ‘Winning’ (Santana) to ‘I Don’t Believe In Miracles’ (Colin Blunstone) , just to name a few – Practically everyone who needed a great song knew that with Russ Ballard they could not go wrong, a fact attested even by boy bands in more recent times.
You can stream Russ Ballard’s New York Groove’ here and check out the video here at RAMzine.
A founding member of Argent, in 1974 he started a solo career, reaching its highest momentum a decade later with the S/T album that included the hit single ‘Voices’ and its follow up ‘The Fire Still Burns’. Since then, Ballard has released 10 studio albums and is still writing and producing hits. Three songs of his 1984 and 1985 album were featured in the TV-show Miami Vice and were extensively played on dancefloors around Europe.
Beyond this, Ballard has also produced numerous records and artists, including The Who’s Roger Daltrey, America, Elkie Brooks, Skindred and even X Factor singer Sada Vidoo.
