"Brother Strut, a new funk-soul band whose line-up has collectively performed on records that have sold over half-a-billion copies, released their debut album 'First Strut Is The Deepest' in 2013.

The band were formed in 2012 by producer & sax player Stevie Jones, after previously been pitching pop songs to satisfy A&R men, who he felt were just churning out the same old stuff. This, Jones soon learnt, was not the route to happiness and decided to abandon all other music production projects and work on something that was driven solely by his love of funk, blues and, in particular, American soul music of the 1960's and '70's. "The X-Factor generation were getting on my tits," says Jones. "Their desire to be famous 'for anything' really didn't connect with me, so I knew I wanted to make Brother Strut about real music with musicians that were awe inspiring and who could deliver the goods live"

With this basic concept in his head, Jones set out to find some of the best, and certainly the funkiest players in the world to make an album - and he succeeded spectacularly, recruiting Steve Pearce (bass), Frankie Tontoh (drums), Otha Smith (electric guitar), Melvin Duffy (electric guitar/pedal steel) and Andrew Murray (piano).

Not only has this line-up played on numerous hit singles and albums, they've also worked for the likes of Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Madonna, Elton John, Sting, George Micheal, Robbie Williams, Al Green, Level 42, Amy Winehouse, George Michael and Don Blackman. The Temptations, Phil Collins, The Supremes, Ramsey Lewis, Detroit Spinners, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams, Jools Holland, UB40, Elkie Brooks, Chris Difford, KT Tunstall, The Waterboys, Joe Cocker, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis and Natasha Bedingfield. Between them, these artists have sold somewhere approaching one billion records - and the members of Brothers Strut have collectively played on over half of these."

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