alison limerick – a music biography

alison Limerick’s career as a vocalist had already begun by the time she appeared in “Labelled With Love”, a musical which featured the music of Squeeze but it was perhaps the first to feature her combined talents as singer and dancer. She went on to perform in other musicals including Webber’s “Starlight Express’’ and Simon Callow’s “The Pajama Game” although that was not the only field of endeavour to capture her interest. Being a versatile singer means that session work was diverse, ranging from Pete Murphy and The Style Council to Malcolm Maclaren and This Mortal Coil.

Her voice graced several recordings prior to signing with Arista Records but eventually a debut solo album, ‘And Still I Rise’, was released in March 1992 and included both ‘Where Love Lives’ and ‘Make it On My Own’, singles that went on to make a lasting mark on the dance world. That same year alison won the Best Female Artist at the DMC Awards. The second album was ‘With A Twist’, on which she collaborated with Frankie Knuckles, Tim Bran and David Morales amongst others. That album also spawned two hit singles, “Time Of Our Lives’’ and ‘Love Come Down’. In 1996 Arista released ‘Alison Limerick; Club Classics’, a remix album. From this release ‘Where Love Lives’ again topped the dance charts with ‘Make It On My Own’ following. For the first time ‘Where Love Lives’ was released in America and reached number 4 in the Billboard Hot Dance 100 Chart. To top off the year she was nominated for a MOBO award. The first single on the Jammin Music label became a Top 5 Dance smash; the song ‘Put Your Faith In Me’ was a collaboration with Luce Drayton and the Visnadi Brothers (who produced Living Joy). A fourth album (Spirit Rising) followed, with the single ‘Let’s Hold On (To Love)’ securing an international release thereafter.

Numerous writing/singing collaborations include ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ with the James Taylor Quartet for their album “In The Hand Of The Inevitable”, tracks for each of the five Vibrophonic albums and two tracks with Japanese band Key of Life for their self-titled album (released in Japan on the Victor label). The versatile vocalist has worked with many other producers including Arthur baker, Joe T Vanelli and Pete Waterman, in England and abroad. No stranger to the live arena, alison has also worked with George Michael, Courtney Pine, Tony Hadley and Lamont Dozier. Moreover she appears in the British movie ‘Collusion’ as ‘the Jazz Singer’. Co-writing the cuts on which she sang, alison featured on the R’n’B album Colour Of My Soul, by Full Flava and on IKON’s self-titled debut album. Other single releases include ‘No Other Love’, out on Chocolate Boy, ‘Workin’ On It’ originally released on Angel Reef and ‘This Girl’ on Identity. Collaborations with And If (an Italian production team) and the UK’s Xpress2, produced the singles ‘Let Me Lead You To Heaven’ and ‘In The Blood’.

In 2016 alison began touring, throughout Europe, with the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, a live project that has her working once more with the writer and producer of Where Love Lives. A new BFE album, on which alison will feature heavily is due out in late 2018.

March 2018 saw the long awaited release of Bye Bye, a track produced by Lenny Fontana. The original release garnered favorable reviews and on remix duty  Phats & Small paid homage to the likes of Frankie Knuckles and delivered a classic, Old Skool floor-filler.

Closer to home this energetic vocalist can be heard singing soulful jazz with Algorisms or performing with Eat Logic – an edgy Jazztronica/Futurejazz collective. Moreover, she can still be heard, live and loud, in house music venues, dance events and festivals around the world, most recently performing with Ministry Of Sound Orchestrated in Australia, Haçienda Classical and  Southbank Symphonia.