Thursday 25 July 2019

Rudy West born 25 July 1932


Rudolph ''Rudy'' Lorenzo West (born July 25, 1932, Newport News, Virginia - died May 14, 1998, Suffolk City, Virginia) was the renowned primary lead singer of the Five Keys and with his delicate, pure singing voice sold millions of records in the 1950s,


Rudy was a graduate of Huntington High School and attended Elizabeth City State Teacher's College on a football scholarship. In 1949, Rudy and his brother Bernard joined another set of singing brothers - Ripley and Raphael Ingram - to form The Sentimental Four, a gospel quartet. Inspired by the harmonies of The Mills Brothers and The Ink Spots, they soon began to shift toward R&B. After winning three consecutive weeks of amateur contests at the Jefferson, they were invited to perform at the prestigious Apollo Theatre in New York City, where they also won.


This led to subsequent engagements at the Royal and Howard Theatres. As the group established their reputation along the Eastern Seaboard, they were noticed by Eddie Mesner, owner of the California-based Aladdin Records, who signed them to a recording contract. About this time, Raphael went into the army and was replaced by Maryland Pierce. Also added was another singer, Dickie Smith, and a sixth man, piano player Joe Jones. Reflecting the personnel changes, their name was changed from the Sentimental Four to the Five Keys.


The Keys toured both the East and West Coasts and their Aladdin songs were recorded in New York and Los Angeles. Some of their approximately 17 Aladdin releases in the early '50s consisted of "Glory of Love," "How Long," "Someday Sweetheart," "Red Sails in the Sunset," and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" with Rudy West and Dickie Smith on leads; and "My Saddest Hour" and "Serve Another Round" with Maryland Pierce on lead.


In 1953, both Rudy and Dickie entered the U.S. Army and were replaced by Ramon Loper and Ulysses Hicks. By mid-1954, the Keys' contract with Aladdin was expiring and their last Aladdin release, "Deep in My Heart," was reviewed in June of that year. In July of 1954, the Five Keys found themselves in the RCA studios, where they recorded four tracks. Two remained unreleased, and "Lawdy Miss Mary" backed with "I'll Follow You" were issued in August 1954 on RCA's subsidiary Groove label. The Keys' manager, Saul Richfield, must have been working very hard for his group at this time, for on August 29, 1954, Capitol announced that they had signed the Five Keys.


By 1955, Rudy West was back and the Five Keys were in the right place at the right time to be recorded using Capitol's advanced audio production techniques. With Rudy on lead, and backed by the Howard Biggs Orchestra, they recorded "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" and "Wisdom of a Fool." Tired of touring, Rudy retired from the group in 1958. In 1959 they recorded several sides for the King label, but they could not sustain the success they had achieved at Capitol. During this time, Rudy also recorded solo sides for King.


                             

In 1962, Rudy West produced and re-recorded "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" with a new group of Keys for Seg-Way Records. In 1965, Rudy recorded "No Matter" on the Inferno label with yet another configuration of Keys. This grouping was also from the Newport News, VA, area and had previously recorded as the Chateaus on Epic and Warner Bros. By this time Rudy took up a career with the U.S. Postal Service but still performed on the oldies circuit. (He retired from post office's Hidenwood branch in 1981.)


While various members reunited during the oldies craze of the 70s, there were to be no further recordings by any 5 Keys group that could be considered original. Rudy West established another Keys group that continued to perform through 1998.  In 1992, the United In Group Harmony Association inducted the original Five Keys in to their Hall of Fame. All original members were present and performed together at the induction ceremony. This was their first time together in 40-plus years and would be the last time they would all take to the stage as a group.



Rudy occasionally sang with George Winfield, Oliver Sidney, and Edwin Hall as "Rudy West and His Keys" right up until the time of his death. His last performance was on April 18, 1998, at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, NY. Even at that point in time, his voice was still magnificent, and his phrasing impeccable. The audience was justifiably thrilled at what would be the final performance of this legendary R&B artist.



Having been diagnosed with prostate cancer, Rudy was getting radiation treatments in the weeks before his death.  A heart attack dealt the final blow, family members said. "Each time, after the radiation treatments, he would come home and lie down on the couch," said Bernard West, Rudy's brother and also an original member of The Five Keys. "Just so happened that last night, his wife couldn't wake him up." Rudy passed away at his home in Chesapeake on may 14, 1998. He was 65. The Five keys were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.

(Edited from All Music & Daily Press. A big thanks to Marv Goldberg for photographs )

Here's a clip taken from the United in Group Harmony Hall of Fame induction show at Symphony Space, NYC, in 1992.  Maryland Pierce is singing lead. Rudy West on falsetto.  A very special moment considering they haven’t sung together for years.

Wednesday 24 July 2019

Bob Eberly born 24 July 1918


Robert Eberly (born Robert Eberle, July 24, 1916 – November 17, 1981) was a big band vocalist best known for his association with Jimmy Dorsey and his duets with Helen O'Connell.

His younger brother Ray was also a big-band singer, most notably with Glenn Miller's orchestra. Their father, John A. Eberle, was a policeman, sign-painter, and tavern-keeper. Another brother, Al, was a Hoosick Falls, New York, village trustee.

Popular singer Bob Eberly spent much of his career with Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra. Eberly, who changed the spelling of his last name from Eberle because the announcer of the Milton Berle radio program kept mispronouncing it, gained prominence by winning Fred Allen’s amateur hour. He began his professional career singing in clubs around his hometown of Hoosick Falls, in upstate New York, where the Dorsey Brothers discovered him and later hired him to replace the departing Bob Crosby.

Bob Eberly with Bing Crosby
Eberly started work in the spring of 1935, three weeks before Tommy walked out on the orchestra. Having been hired by Tommy, he feared losing his job, but both brothers offered him a position. He chose Jimmy, as Tommy wouldn’t be able to pay him for several weeks until his new band was ready to perform.

Eberly stayed with Jimmy for eight years and ranked as one of the top male vocalists of his day, rivaling Bing Crosby and later Frank Sinatra for that title. He placed third in Billboard magazine’s 1940, 1941 and 1942 college polls for best male vocalist, moving up to second in 1943. He recorded the original version of "I'm Glad There Is You" in 1942 with Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra on
Decca Records. The song became a jazz and pop standard.

Eberly and Helen O'Connell teamed up regularly on records; Eberly would have a ballad chorus (he much preferred slow tempos) and then, after an instrumental interlude, O'Connell would take a hotter chorus. Engineered originally by arranger Tutti Camarata so both singers could be featured on Dorsey's radio show, the combination clicked from the start, resulting in hit versions of "Amapola," "Tangerine," "Green Eyes" and "Maria Elena."


                               

Well-​liked by his peers, Eberly became best friends and eventually roommates with Jimmy Dorsey. Throughout his career, he was encouraged by many in the industry to strike out on his own, but he refused. He was perfectly happy earning a weekly salary with Dorsey’s group. Most famous are his duets with Helen O’Connell, in whom he also had romantic interest.

In December 1943, Eberly’s relationship with Dorsey finally ended when he entered the army and was stationed in the Chicago area with Wayne King’s orchestra. His two years in the service severely hurt his career. After he received his discharge, he signed with Decca and began touring as a solo act, finding though that he had been largely forgotten by the general public.


Eberly recorded for the Coral and World labels in the late 1940s before signing to Capitol in 1951, where he was reunited on duets with O’Connell. During the early 1950s, he was a regular on the television program TV’s Top Tunes. In 1953, Eberly and Helen O'Connell headlined a summer replacement program for Perry Como's CBS television show. The program also featured Ray Anthony and his orchestra, but by the middle of the decade he had faded from the public eye.

He did continue working into the 1970s, and co-hosted a summer replacement television show with Helen O'Connell one year, but was largely forgotten. He spent the rest of his career singing mostly in small clubs.

His last engagement was during 1980 at the Top of the World in Disney World, Fla., only weeks before he underwent surgery for removal of his right lung. Frank Sinatra paid for the operation, even though the two singers had never met. Bob had been suffering from cancer, and he had sustained four heart attacks as a result of
chemotherapy treatment. He died of a heart attack in 1981 in Glen Burnie, Maryland, at the age of 65.


Eberly was married to Florine Callahan from January 23, 1940 until his death in 1981; the couple had 3 children; Robert Jr., Kathy and Rene. Robert Jr. went on to sing professionally and although he was talented, he never achieved the popularity of his father which was due, in part, to the changing times and the diminishing nightclub scene as the popularity of Big Band music as a whole began to decline during the mid to latter part of the 20th century.  (Edited from Bandchirps, Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Gloria DeHaven born 23 July 1925



Gloria Mildred DeHaven (July 23, 1925 – July 30, 2016) was an American actress and singer who was a contract star for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Gloria Mildred DeHaven was born in Los Angeles, California, to vaudeville headliners Carter and Flora DeHaven. Her parents made sure their daughter would be educated at the very best private schools. They also indulged her ambition to be in show business by packing her off to the Mar-Ken Professional School in Hollywood (1940-42). Diminutive of stature and dark-haired, budding musical star Gloria (her nickname then was "Glo") 
enjoyed collecting perfume, reading (her favourite book being Daphne Du Maurier) and listening to the big bands (particularly Tommy Dorsey).

With her father's help (who was assistant director and a friend of Charles Chaplin), she finagled her first movie appearance -- an un-credited  bit part in Modern Times (1936). Her first visible role was in the George Cukor-directed Susan and God (1940). A contemporary newspaper article quipped that the winsome lass was "a backstage baby, never a child star". Always a popular pin-up with American servicemen in World War II, Gloria was featured on the cover of 'Yank' magazine in June 1944.

In the first place, Gloria concentrated on her singing career. She developed her own nightclub act over the years and also enjoyed considerable success as a solo vocalist with the orchestras of Bob Crosby, Jan Savitt and Muzzy Marcellino. It was her singing which prompted Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to sign her under contract in 1940. During the following decade, she made decent strides as a soubrette and was regularly featured as second lead in cheerful light musicals. The pick of the bunch were Thousands Cheer (1943), Step Lively (1944) (on loan to RKO, giving Frank Sinatra his first screen kiss), Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), Summer Stock (1950) and Three Little Words (1950).  


                               

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard on Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960. Also during the early 1960s, DeHaven recorded for the small Seeco label, where she appeared on the 1962 compilation album
Gloria Lynne and Her Friends. She was also heard on four of the Revisited compilations produced by Ben Bagley.

Gloria never quite managed to get first tier assignments and her career waned as musicals ceased to be a bankable commodity. In the early 1950s, she attempted stronger dramatic roles but with only moderate success. By 1955, she had wisely turned to the stage for occasional appearances on Broadway. She played Diane opposite Ricardo Montalban in the musical version of Seventh Heaven. She also toured in a summer stock production of No, No, Nanette.

As late as 1989, she sang in cabaret at the Rainbow & Stars in New York. There was also a screen comeback of sorts with recurring roles in the soap operas Ryan's Hope (1975), As the World Turns (1956) and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976).

She was one of the numerous celebrities who appeared in box office bomb Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), and guest-starred on television series, such as Gunsmoke (1955), Mannix (1967), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), The Love Boat (1977), Fantasy Island (1977), Hart to Hart (1979), Murder, She Wrote (1984) and Touched by an Angel (1994).

After a long absence from the screen, DeHaven appeared as the love interest of Jack Lemmon in the comedy Out to Sea (1997), also starring Walter Matthau. She moved to Las Vegas in 2003 from Beverly Hills to be closer to family.

Gloria died of a stroke in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 30, 2016, one week after her 91st birthday.

DeHaven was married four times to three men. Her first husband was actor John Payne, star of The Restless Gun, whom she married in 1944 and divorced in 1950. Her second husband was real estate developer Martin Kimmel. They were married in 1953 and divorced the following year. 


She was married to Richard Fincher, son of a Miami Oldsmobile dealer, from 1957 until 1963. They remarried in 1965 and divorced again in 1969.  She had two children with Payne, daughter Kathleen Hope (born 1945) and son Thomas John (born 1947) as well as two children with Fincher, son Harry (born 1958) and daughter Faith (born 1962).

(Edited mainly from IMDb bio by I.S.Mowis & Wikipedia)

Monday 22 July 2019

Margaret Whiting born 22 July 1924


Margaret Eleanor Whiting (July 22, 1924 – January 10, 2011) was an American popular music and country music singer who gained popularity in the 1940s and 1950s.

Whiting was born in Detroit, but her family moved to Los Angeles in 1929, when she was five years old. Her father, Richard, was a composer of popular songs, including the classics "Hooray for Hollywood", "Ain't We Got Fun?", and "On the Good Ship Lollipop". Her sister, Barbara Whiting, was an actress (Junior Miss, Beware, My Lovely) and singer.

Margaret began singing as a small child and, by the age of seven, signed with Johnny Mercer, the popular songwriter and founder of Capitol Records, for whom her father worked. When Mercer and his two partners launched 
Capitol, she was the first artist to be engaged by the label, where she began recording in 1942. She served as President of the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and she continued her work as a performer of Mercer songs.

Under her own name in late 1945, she recorded the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II composition "All Through The Day", which became a bestseller in the spring of 1946, and "In Love In Vain", both of which were featured in the film Centennial Summer (1946). She also had hits with songs from the Broadway musicals "St. Louis Woman" and "Call Me Mister" in 1946. Those
first recordings under her name were made in New York.

In late 1946, she returned to California and began recording there, with Jerry and His Orchestra--"Guilty" and "Oh, But I Do" were the best-selling results of that session. Her hit streak continued in 1948-49. Whiting supplied vocals to tracks cut by 'Frank DeVol'  and His Orchestra, including "A Tree In The Meadow", a #1 hit in the summer of 1948.


                             

Her next #1 song occurred in 1949 with "Slipping Around", one of a series of duet recordings made with country/western singer and cowboy star Jimmy Wakely. Also during that year, Whiting recorded a duet with Mercer, "Baby, It's Cold Outside". In 1950, she had a hit with "Blind Date", a novelty record made with Bob Hope and Billy May and His Orchestra.  

Between 1946 and 1954, she had more than 40 solo hit tunes for Capitol and continued recording for the label until her run of hits dried up. She left the company in 1958 for Dot Records but achieved only one hit there. She switched to Verve Records in 1960 and recorded a number of albums, including one with jazz vocalist Mel Tormé.

A brief return to Capitol was followed by a hiatus, after which Whiting signed with London Records in 1966, and landed one last major hit single in 1966, "The Wheel of Hurt", which hit #1 on the Easy Listening singles chart. Her final solo albums were made for Audiophile (1980, 1982, 1985) and DRG Records (1991). Her
distinguished conductors and musical arrangers through the years included Buddy Bregman, Frank DeVol, Russell Garcia, Johnny Mandel, Billy May, Marty Paich, Nelson Riddle, Pete Rugolo, and Paul Weston.

Not only was she a recording star but she also became a fixture on radio, appeared on television in the ’50s and later embarked on a successful nightclub career, touring as late as the 1990s and occasionally venturing into musical theatre, such as the Broadway musical "Dream" (1997) and in the PBS broadcast The Songs of Johnny Mercer: Too Marvelous for Words (1997) (TV). 
Margaret with Johnny Mercer
She was still performing into the 21st century, often at clubs like Arci’s Place in Manhattan, where she had long been a mainstay of the cabaret scene.

Whiting was married four times, Firstly with Hubbell Robinson Jr., a writer, producer, and television executive (December 29, 1948 – divorced August 18, 1949) then Lou Busch, a ragtime pianist known as "Joe 'Fingers' Carr" (divorced; one daughter, Deborah, born 1950) also John Richard Moore, a founder of Panavision (married 1958 – divorced). Lastly she married  Jack Wrangler (John Stillman) when Whiting was 70 and he was 48 (1994 – April 7, 2009; his death from emphysema)

Whiting died on January 10, 2011, aged 86, from natural causes at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey.


One often-repeated story took place in the early 1940s, when she was 19. Mercer had asked her to sing “Moonlight in Vermont,” which he had just heard and felt was ideal for her voice. “I’ve never been to Vermont,” she said. “How can I sing a song about a place I’ve never been to? What is the significance of pennies in a stream? What are ski tows?”  “I don’t know,” Mercer replied. “I’m from Savannah. We’ll use our imagination.”  

(Edited from numerous sources mainly IMDb and Wikipedia)

Saturday 20 July 2019

Mary Mayo born 20 July 1924


Mary Mayo Riker Ham (born July 20, 1924 in Statesville , North Carolina , † December 1985 in New York City ) was an American singer in the field of jazz , folk , exotica , easy listening and pop music. She had an amazing voice with a range of four octaves.  She could sing baritone, tenor, alto soprano and high violin.

Mary Mayo, the daughter of Lois Long and Franklin Riker, both opera singers, attended high school in Statesville and then Peace College in Raleigh. In 1945 She studied voice, piano and musical theory at New York's Juilliard School. The following year she won a talent show.

Mayo first got started as a singer appearing on broadcasts from radio station WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina just after the end of World War Two. Gifted with a four-octave range, she was soon spotted by talent scouts and wound up working for Tex Beneke, who was leading the post-war version of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. While singing with Beneke, she married Al Ham, an arranger and bass player in the band. Regarding her voice she said: "My voice runs from low to high, but it's not something you ever need."

She moved to New York City where she sang in the Roxy Chorus. The magazine Down Beat dedicated a cover story to her on June 15, 1951, and Johnny Mercer got her a record contract with Capitol Records where she recorded  a handful of sides including “A Penny a Kiss, A Penny a Hug”, “ Bring Back the Thrill”  and the Sammy Cahn songs “I Can See You” and “Dark Is the Night.”
Frank Sinatra heard her cover version of Blue Moon and brought her as a guest on his first TV show.  This was followed by appearances at Cavalcade of Stars (1952) and in the shows of Jackie Gleason (1953), Perry Como and Jack Parr. She then became a member of the Tex Beneke led Glenn Miller Orchestra. During this time she married Al Ham, who worked as an arranger and bassist in the Beneke band.


                               

After the birth of their daughter Lorri, the couple was in 1956 in New York City down where her husband Al Ham in the music studios of Columbia Records worked as a producer. He also worked in 1965 on the Paramount production of B-movie Harlow (directed by Alex Segal), for which Mayo participated in the film music, which came from Ham and Nelson Riddle. In the following years
she appeared sporadically on other film productions and soundtrack albums from Broadway musicals as a session singer for
Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett. She also sang alongside Don Elliott in the short-lived vocal ensemble The Manhattanaires.

Her biggest hit was Dick Hyman's album Moon Gas (MGM Records, 1963) in the space-age-pop genre that features Mayo's mostly wordless spherical vocals, Hyman's Theremin- like sound effects on the Moog synthesizer, and Vinnie Bell's signature guitar.
When Duke Ellington was honoured at the White House on his 70th birthday, Mary Mayo was the female vocalist chosen to sing in his honour. The event was recorded and released on Blue Note Records as "1969 All Star Tribute To Duke Ellington at the White House.” (see photo below)













In the 1970s, she appeared as a member of the folk group The Hillside Singers, which became popular in the United States through the jingle I'd Like to Give the World a Coke. The group had Ham as a replacement for The New Seekers composed of studio musicians, including Mayo and her daughter Lorri. Another success story was I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, which was also published by the New Seekers soon after.

The Hillside Singers

The Metromedia label subsequently released two full-length Hillside Singers LPs, including a Christmas recording, both featuring Mayo. In the following years, Mayo appeared on the radio show The Music of Your Life, mainly Easy Listening Music offered.

In the late 1970's, Mary Mayo performed to sold out crowds at several prominent nightclubs in New York City including the Copacabana, Michael's Pub, and the Roseland Ballroom. Mary Mayo also teamed frequently with North Carolina composer Loonis McGlohon.  The Land Of Oz theme park on Beech Mountain and the annual production of McGlohon's classic musical, "A Child's
Christmas" at Oven's Auditorium in Charlotte featured both Mary Mayo and her daughter Lorri.

Mary Mayo and Loonis McGlohon performed at jazz clubs in Japan and did several radio shows for the "American Popular Song" series with Alec Wilder on NPR. Selections from that radio series were recorded and released on Audiophile Records as "Time Remembered."  Unfortunately, Mayo did not live to see the album's release in 1986. She continued to work professionally until her death from cancer in December 1985. 

(Edited from Wikipedia , All Music & Statesville History)

Thursday 18 July 2019

Dion DiMucci born 18 July 1939


Dion DiMucci (born Dion Francis DiMucci, 18 July 1939), better known as Dion, is an American singer-songwriter, now widely recognized as one of the top singers of his era, blending the best elements of doo-wop, pop, and R&B styles.

Dion was born to an Italian-American family in the Bronx borough of New York City. As a child, he used to accompany his father, a vaudeville entertainer, on tour, and developed a love of country music – particularly Hank Williams – and the blues and doo-wop stars he heard in local bars and on the radio. His singing abilities were honed on the street corners of Crotona Avenue, where he rounded up other local singers inventing acapella licks, and in local clubs.

In early 1957 he auditioned for Bob and Gene Schwartz, who had just formed Mohawk Records. They recorded him with a vocal group, The Timberlanes, and released a single "The Chosen Few", arranged by Hugo Montenegro, which became a minor regional hit.

Schwartz also signed up Dion's friends, The Belmonts, named after nearby Belmont Avenue. Their breakthrough together came in early 1958, when "I Wonder Why" made # 22 on the national US charts, followed up with "No One Knows" and "Don’t Pity Me" which were also chart hits.


Dion with Buddy Holly

This success won Dion and the Belmonts a place on the "Winter Dance Party" tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. On 2 February 1959, after playing at Clear Lake, Iowa, Dion decided that he could not afford the $36 cost of a flight to the next venue . The plane crashed, and Holly and the other stars were killed.


                               

In March 1959, Dion and the Belmonts’ next single, "A Teenager In Love", was released, making # 5 in the US pop charts and # 28 in the UK. Their biggest hit, "Where or When", was released in November 1959, and reached #3 on the US charts. However, in early 1960, Dion checked in to hospital for heroin addiction, a
problem he had had since his mid-teens. Further single releases for the group that year were less successful, there were musical and financial differences between Dion and members of the Belmonts, and in October 1960 Dion decided to quit for a solo career.

He moved from doo wop to more R&B/pop-oriented tunes with great success. He handled himself with a suave, cocky ease on hits like "The Wanderer," "Runaround Sue," "Lovers Who Wander," "Ruby Baby," and "Donna the Prima Donna," which cast him as either the jilted, misunderstood youngster or the macho lover, capable of handling anything that came his way (especially on "The Wanderer").

In 1963, Dion moved from Laurie to the larger Columbia label, an association that started promisingly with a couple of big hits right off the bat, "Ruby Baby" and "Donna the Prima Donna." By the mid-'60s, his heroin habit (which he'd developed as a teenager) was getting the best of him, and he did little recording and performing for about five years.

In 1968, Dion had what he would later describe as a powerful religious experience. He kicked heroin and re-emerged as a gentle folk-rocker with a number four hit single, "Abraham, Martin and John." Dion would focus upon mature, contemporary material on his late-'60s and early-'70s albums, which were released to positive 
critical feedback, if only moderate sales. The folk phase didn't last long; in 1972 he reunited with the Belmonts and in the mid-'70s cut a disappointing record with Phil Spector as producer. He recorded and performed fairly often in the years that followed (sometimes singing Christian music), to indifferent commercial results.

Dion continued to be active as the 21st century opened, releasing Déjà Nu in 2000, Under the Influence in 2005, and Bronx in Blue in 2006. His first major-label album since 1989's Yo Frankie, Son of Skip James was released by Verve in 2007, while 2008's Heroes: Giants of Early Guitar Rock saw him tackling 15 songs from the classic rock & roll era. 
Influenced by a conversation with rock critic Dave Marsh about his long and still relevant career, and a dare from his wife Susan to prove it, Dion cut Tank Full of Blues, producing and playing the guitars himself on the recording and writing or co-writing all but one track on the set. Issued on Blue Horizon, it is the final recording in the trilogy that began with Bronx in Blue.
  
Dion signed to Instant Records in 2015 and immediately set to recording a new studio album. Entitled New York Is My Home, its first single and title track -- a duet with Paul Simon -- was pre-released in November digitally and as a striking video. The album was issued in the winter of 2016.   (Edited from Wikipedia & All Music)