Hailing from north west London, the band started out as Hot Waxx which also included Phil Fearon (Galaxy) and Lloyd Phillips (Kandidate). They changed their name to Hi-Tension and signed to Chris Blackwell‘s legendary Island Records with the original line-up as: Jeffrey Guishard, David Joseph, Ken Joseph, Patrick McLean, Paul McLean, Paul Phillips, David Reid, Leroy Williams and Paapa Mensah.
In the early ’80’s the band split up, with David Joseph pursuing a solo career and scoring hits such as ‘You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me)’, ‘Joys Of Life’ and ‘Expansions (Expand Your Mind)’, the latter with Chris Paul.
In 1984 Ken, Leroy and Jeff reformed the band (with other members David Joseph and Paul Phillips on the recording sessions) & released ‘Rat Race’ that year and in 1985 ‘You Make Me Happy’ (written, produced and arranged by David Pic Conley of Surface). Both these releases came out on Morgan Khan‘s Streetwave label.
In 2014 we saw a little bit of musical history take place in Barnet and welcomed these UK Brit-funk giants back on stage at our eighth event, their first performance together in 30 years! Two years later Paul and Patrick McLean joined Beggar & Co, Steve Salvari (Central Line), Ernie McKone and his band on the main stage, for an all-star performance. Most of those ‘all stars’ from the day have subsequently gone on to form The Brit Funk Association, a 10 piece collective performing classic jazz funk tracks and some new material too.