Evelyn Thomas is one of the most popular and richest Musician who was born on August 22, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The single that followed “Masquerade” was taken from her third album High Energy that was released the following year. While it enjoyed a lot of airplay within European club, it did not manage to reach the UK Top 40. Then in the US the song became an top 20 Dance chart hit. The next season “Heartless” became her sole single, with the exception of “High Energy” to chart outside of the charts for Club/Dance across the United States. “Heartless” peaked at No. 85 on the Black Singles chart (later renamed the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles & Tracks chart) in 1985.
A new remix of her largest hit was released in 2004 as “High Energy 2004” and became a worldwide gay club hit. The remix was released on Dance Street/ZYX Records out of Germany in early 2005. The remix secured moderate radio and club play on the Stateside. This song was then ripped off by Daz Sampson in 2005 who tried to get it released in the UK before the Germans could release their remix.
In May 2008, Evelyn Thomas took part in the major RTL Disco Tour, performing in 15 cities throughout France. While in Europe, Thomas completed several new recordings in different countries with the aim of making a comeback. She has teamed up with Ian Levine for the first time in 20 years, recording the tracks “Pounding the Pavement”, “One in a Million” and “I Can’t Give You the World”. She has recorded four tracks, “Stick to the Plan”, “Missing the Target”, “Infidelity” and the ballad “Why Must the Sunrise” for a diva album called The Plan for Night Dance Records, produced by Scandinavian songwriter Søren Jensen in collaboration with Clive Scott, formerly of Jigsaw. Thomas has also teamed up with French team Evolusound for a single release, “Prove It”, written and produced by Frank Savannah and remixed by Laurent Schark.
Though most well-known for her 1980s Hi-NRG-influenced club hit, Thomas recorded and performed in jazz, disco and gospel styles for more than a decade prior to her successful run into the late 1980s. She was discovered through British producer Ian Levine, who was in the US in 1975 looking for gospel and soul singers that he might promote within the UK and the pair recorded a number of tracks that led to a deal for a record deal with 20th Century Records. Evelyn Thomas scored a chart record with her debut single, making it to the UK Top 30 in 1976 by way of the single “Weak Spot,” co-written by Levine and Paul David Wilson . The follow-up track “Doomsday”, entered the UK charts twice before each time it was a failure in the lower ranks as contract issues made her debut a struggle, even though Levine and Thomas continued to collaborate for a while. She signed with US company Casablanca Records for her first album release , I Wanna Create It On My Own that was released in 1978. Since Casablanca not doing much to promote the album the singer switched over to AVI Records for the double A-side 12″ single “Have a Little Faith in Me” as well as “No Time to Turn Around” that prompted the label to issue it as an album that was accompanied by Rick Gianatos’ extended remixes of her 1976 songs “My My Head’s In the Sky” as well as “Love’s Not An Illusion”. The album was followed by Evelyn Thomas re-recorded three tracks from a failed project of the group of Levine Moonstone, “Love in the First Degree”, “Summer on the Beach” and “Sleaze” (originally entitled “Out of the Ball Game”) however, due to the disco backlash that erupted in the US The tracks were never released.
While disco music was labeled “dead” in the US following a backlash of 1979, a few songs that carried on and accelerated the exuberant trend of dance music that was uptempo did manage to make it onto the US chart in the years that followed, including The Blondie’s “Call Me” in 1980 as well as Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” in 1982, and Irene Cara’s “Flashdance (What A Feeling)” in 1983. Not wanting to use the term “disco”, the phrase “high energy” had come into use, possibly in England during the early 1980s. In 1984, Ian Levine had re-established himself as a producer, and he asked Evelyn Thomas to come to London to record a brand new track titled “High Energy”. Within a few weeks of when the release and it soared into the top charts across Europe and reached No. 1 . in Germany as well as No. five in UK. It was also a hit in the US it reached the top spot at No. #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart with a sales of 250,000 copies. The track was her only Billboard Hot 100 entry, which peaked at No. 85, but three more songs made it onto the Billboard dance chart. In 1984, the term was accepted as a DJ term across Europe and the States especially in gay clubs, where DJs who preferred playing records that exceeded an arbitrary BPM (Beats Per Minute) threshold discovered that many popular hits were slow in their tempo. It was then rebranded in the form of the short form “Hi-Energy,” the term quickly became abbreviated in the form of “Hi-NRG”, and was used for over two decades later to refer to the genre of high-tempo dance music.
In spring 1997, Redemption featuring Evelyn Thomas had a minor US club hit with the track “Tell The World”.
