Five Star
The five-piece group of siblings from
Romford,
Essex were masterminded by their father and manager,
Buster Pearson, in the style of
The Jackson 5. He was a former session musician who had worked with
Wilson Pickett and had set up Tent Records Inc. to release the group's material, backed by
RCA Records. Following the release of Five Star's debut album,
Luxury of Life in 1985, the group scored their first Top 10 hit in 1986 with "
System Addict". The group also began to gain a following in the
United States and several singles made the Billboard Dance and R&B Charts Top 10. Their second album,
Silk And Steel, released in 1986, included five UK Top 10 chart hits: "
Can't Wait Another Minute", "
Find The Time", "
Rain Or Shine", "
Stay Out Of My Life" (penned by Denise) and "
The Slightest Touch". The album itself reached number one and sold 1.2 million copies in the UK alone. In 1987, the group won the
BRIT Award for Best British Group, and also saw the release of their third album,
Between The Lines, which reached number seven in the UK. However, none of this album's singles made the Top 10.
In 1988 the group attempted to change their clean-cut image to a more adult-oriented "leather clad" look, matched with a slightly harder-edged dance sound. Led by the
Leon Sylvers III produced single, "
Another Weekend", their fourth album
Rock the World met with only moderate success, and was their last Top 20 album. The album's second single, "
Rock My World", became their last Top 40 hit, and further singles from the album were unsuccessful.
In 1989 their
Greatest Hits collection peaked at a lowly No.53 on the UK album chart. In April of that year, the group had made an infamous appearance on the British children's TV show
Going Live, when, during a live phone-in, a teenage caller called them "****ing crap". To make matters worse, amid reports of bankruptcy, the family had been forced to sell their Berkshire mansion after only two years
[1] . The family then moved to
Hatfield, Hertfordshire.
[1]
Now at loggerheads with
RCA, Buster Pearson signed the group to
Epic Records in 1990, and the group's fifth studio album,
Five Star, was self-produced at the family home. Despite heavy promotion, its two singles, "
Treat Me Like A Lady" and "
Hot Love", failed. A planned third single, "
What About Me Baby" was shelved, and the UK release of the album abandoned. In October, Stedman Pearson pleaded guilty to a charge of
public indecency after being arrested in a public toilet in
New Malden in London.
[1][2][3][4][5][6] Following this, the band relocated to the United States.
After the 1991 release of their sixth album,
Shine, Epic Records dropped the group. In 1994, the group released an album on their own Tent label,
Heart And Soul, which was reissued in 1995 in the UK. Again, chart success eluded them and the group informally ended. Denise got married and had children, and Delroy went into musical production.
In 2001, a new Five Star single, "Funktafied", peaked at number 99 on the U.S. R&B Chart.
[7] However, the accompanying new album
Eclipse was not a success and was the group's final album to date. Five Star returned to the UK in 2002, as a trio of Stedman, Denise and Lorraine, to perform on various tours, including the
Here and Now nostalgia tour. In 2005, "System Addict" was re-recorded and re-released. Five Star were booked to perform a gig at
Butlins in October 2006, in which all five members were billed. However, three impersonators were used to mime to backing tapes.
[1]
Denise revealed in 2007 that she was working on solo material.
[8]
In March 2007, the group's record label,
Sony BMG, released a compilation
DVD of all their videos,
Five Star Performance.
For Five Star's 25th anniversary in 2008, Denise joined Stedman and backing dancers for gigs at
Butlins during October and November 2008. Earlier that year, Denise stated in an interview with
The Guardian newspaper that if she could convince sister Lorraine to join them, then all five original members of the group would like to perform one last tour together.
[1] The following year, she made her West End debut performing in
Thriller - Live at the Lyric Theatre from January to December 2009.
In 2010 it was announced that Cherry Pop records would be releasing Special Edition CDs of their first two albums
Luxury of Life and
Silk and Steel.
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