Noel was born on November, 4th in 1956 in London.
"Well, it started for me when I was a little boy, because I came from a Christian upbringing. My father was a minister in Gospel church... So from the age of about 5 years old I remember singing a great deal with the church and playing tambourines. Eventually one of the ministers of the church taught me a few basic chords on guitar... And that's how I originally started my musical career, from a Gospel upbringing."
One of the very first bands he joined during his school time was called The Black And White Notes. On leaving school he joined the band Moon who were signed to Epic.
"Moon originally wanted to be an instrumental band. But when they heard that I was an allright singer ...they then would do material by Steely Dan, Little Feet and other bands. We actually did something by Steve Miller as well. But I wasn't involved with the writing, I was just a voice for the band, just a singer. And we ended up doing two albums for CBS, Epic Records. We always were a very good live band, but we didn't really have good management and we really never got ourselves a good producer... So at the time we should have carried on we decided to break the band up, but people to this day still will mention Moon and ask me how are the other members of the band."
After Moon split up Noel remained with Epic releasing the album Night Time Emotions produced by Trevor Rabin. He went on working with many other bands including Mezzoforte, Morrisey Mullen and Sniff and the Tears.
"Well, that was a progression of Moon really. The drummer in Moon was a guy called Lou Salvoni and he knew the singer/songwriter of Sniff'n The Tears, a guy called Paul Roberts who wrote the songs. I was just called in to help to do some backing vocals ( e.g.'Driver Seat',1978)... I worked on two, possibly three albums ... and we did an American tour supporting the band called Kansas and Kenny Logins... It's a shame, because I thought the band could have done another one or two hit singles before we went to America, just to carry more weight really, to kind of have more strength about the band. After we did that tour things started to go down hill, and it never really picked up again. But I wasn't actually a permanent member of the band. I was more an employed member, a guest vocalist."
Around this time Noel also sang vocals on Mike Rutherfords 'Small Creep's Day'.(1980)
"'Small Creep's Day' was a fantastic album to this day, I think that's one of my better achievements. "
In 1987 Noel at last achieved his ambition of forming his own band Contact. This band was working and becoming popular on the London circuit. They produced a cassette to sell at gigs. In 1993 the band changed its name to McCalla and released a 14 track CD 'Push And Pull' which was received with enormous critical acclaim. A second album 'Hot From The Smoke' followed in 1995.
"We called that first album 'Push And Pull' , some fantastic songs. It suffered on the recordings because we had to buy our own equipment and record the album at home. But it turned out to be a fine album with some very good material on it. Then we went on to do another album called 'Hot From The Smoke', each album comprising of about 14 tracks, mostly original.I wasn't the main lyricist within the band. There was a song writer called Brian Copsey who was outside of the band, he didn't perform. But he was doing a lot of the writing, he's very good. And I still have a strong relationship with him. But then I decided that after working with the Earth Band plus working with my own band plus having to raise a family it just became too much... It seemed like a good time to stop the band, so I did." In 1990 Noel got involved with Manfred Mann as a vocalist on the album 'Plains Music'. He had been asked to join the Earth Band and from then on he has been busy with them doing European tours and recording the album 'Soft Vengeance' and 'Mann Alive'.
"He came to see my band... He said to me 'I like your voice. Let's do this 'Plains Music' album which we did. And I really loved the album... He said ' We're doing the tour next year. Would you do the vocals for me?' I said 'O.k. then.' But I don't think I would have got involved with Manfred and done MMEB albums if that were the first thing he asked me to do, without 'Plains Music'...So it was through the 'Plains Music' album we managed to get involved with each other. That was in 1990...I thought maybe that I wouldn't be with him for so long ... I always felt for the first two years that there would be another singer right behind me to have a go and doing the vocals, but not the case... We've done the live album, the 'Soft Vengeance' album before and lots of touring...And the audience still comes and still appreciates it." Beside his work with Manfred Mann's Earth Band Noel's been busy in Switzerland several times. Around 1999/2000/2001 he's been doing the vocals for a Swiss band called Funky Brotherhood on tour and producing a 4 track CD 'Get on up and dance'. Through his Swiss connections Noel also got involved with the 'Guido Ettlin Project' which has been touring the Swiss Clubs in spring of 1999. Recently Noel has connections also to Italy, where he spent some time in spring and summer of the last year. He contributed the two songs 'Hold On' and 'Teach us' to a compilation of red indian music 'Wayan-Natural Wave' . He also wrote the lyrics for 'Masquenada' - a song appearing on the compilation album 'Masquenada-Vol.2'. Noel's next own album with Brian Copsey is planed to be released this year. |
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