JUST SOMETHING is Dee C Lee’s first album since 1998’s Japan-only Smiles. She recorded it at Chicken Shack studios in Bromley, the home set-up of producer Sir Tristan Longworth. “It is a chicken shack,” says the former Style Council vocalist and Wham! backing singer, speaking from the east London offices of her label Acid Jazz. “He’s got chickens in the back. If I was going for a note and couldn’t get it, I’d go and sit in the garden and chill out with the chickens for five minutes… after that, I’m getting it right.”
Her return to recording is partly the consequence of the 2020 documentary Long Hot Summers: The Story Of The Style Council. Therein, in 2019, Lee, her former husband and bandmate Paul Weller, keyboardist Mick Talbot and drummer Steve White reunited to play 1988 cut It’s A Very Deep Sea.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful that track was,” says Lee, “and it was lovely to do it. It got the old juices going again. At the documentary screening I was feeling quite soppy and I met [Acid Jazz boss and the UK’s Mod-inchief] Eddie Piller, who said, ‘I’d forgotten about your beautiful voice, are you doing music?’ I don’t think I would have done it with anybody else but Acid Jazz because they would never have got me as much.
“I’ve always made music, but I’d wanted to concentrate on having another life, which was romance, children, etc,” she says of her time away from recording and the unavoidable vicissitudes of life. “I got it, and then I didn’t get it. And then I got it again. I’ve had such a long time out, enjoying it too, watching my kids grow up, one with kids of her own. Now I’ve got that freedom again.”
She got down to work quickly in early 2020 and used lockdowns as a time to write, drawing on existing compositions and collaborating with songwriters including ’80s collaborators Michael McEvoy and Ernest McKone, Paul Barry (who co-wrote Cher’s Believe) and old friend Talbot. After demoing from February to April, “nine to five” studio work at Chicken Shack began in early summer ’23, with players from The Brand New Heavies and the James Taylor Quartet, among others. They finished in August, with a restorative week’s break in Sardinia in-between (“my voice went after not singing for so long,” says Lee, “and then giving it loads without warming up”).
Tracks include uplifting love song Everyday Summer, penned by her daughter Leah, Motown-esque Mick Talbot co-write Walk Away, and Trojan Horse, which reflects on betrayal. “It has got this Acid Jazz-y sound,” says Lee of the album’s mix of ’80s R&B, ’70s funk and ’60s soul, “but you can also taste a little Wham!, definitely some Style Council, the music that I grew up listening to, and whatever else has been milling around there.”
She’s planning more work and live performances and is gratified that, 40 years on from her first successes, her voice has deepened and gained in texture. “I knew my voice was going to sound more grown up, and I wanted that,” she says. “I’m ready to start making music as a grown-up, you know?”
FACT SHEET
Title: Just Something
Due: Spring
Songs: Don’t Forget About Love/How To Love/Back In Time/Mountains/For Once In My Life
The Buzz: “It’s really based around musicianship, and [producer] Tristan did his magic, he really got the vibe of what I was trying to get. I think that there’s a thread through this album, you can really hear my whole career and the people I’ve worked with.” Dee C Lee