Hazell Dean is preparing to release more original music in the coming months.
The Hi-NRG superstar has spent much of the past year revisiting past recordings for a series of ‘Dean & Ware’ compilation releases, featuring remixed tracks by herself and Pete Ware.
Having recently released her mini-album ‘8’ – featuring a selection of ABBA cover versions – she tells Retro Pop’s November 2022 issue there’s more new music on the way.
Addressing her retirement from live performing, she maintains: “I couldn’t give music up completely – it’s been my whole life since I was seven years old. I’ve always sang, so you can’t just cut it off.
“That’s why it’s nice that I can go into the studio and be creative; that keeps my musical thing going. There’s definitely more music to come. There’s still a couple of years in me yet.”
Speaking ahead of the 40th anniversary of the release of Searchin’ (I Gotta Find a Man) – the song that took Hazell into the UK Top 10 – the hitmaker looks back on her success and recalls the rush to find a follow-up when the anthem finally got big in 1984.
“Searchin’ was sitting at No. 6 in the charts and I hadn’t got a follow-up. I bumped into Pete Waterman at Proto Records and we got chatting. Just like, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’…” she remembers.
“He said, ‘Why don’t you come down to meet these two new guys I’m working with?’ [Mike Stock and Matt Aitken] I said, ‘Okay’. So off I trott the Marquee Studios a few days later, they put the track on, and it’s the backing track to Divine’s You Think You’re a Man. Well, it sounded amazing and I said, ‘Oh, yes, I want some of that’.”
Four decades on and she’s still recording, with a new single due over the festive period While Hazell remained tight-lipped on the subject, she did share a teaser of the recording.
“It’s an original song,” she hints. “It’s not a Christmas song, but it’ll work. It’s a ballad, I’ll give you that.”
Read the full interview in the November 2022 edition of Retro Pop, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
