Dreamgirls star Durone Stokes has recorded a re-imagined, gospel-flavoured version of one of the hit show’s most popular songs, ‘Family’.
Co-produced with leading UK music producer Byron Hosking, the South East London born artist has returned to the song he performed when he played the role of C.C. White in the award-winning Savoy Theatre run of the hit show.
Commenting on the development of the song chosen as his debut single, Stokes said: “I worked with Byron to build the track from scratch, looking at tweaking the structure of the song so that it could work well outside of the context of the show.”
A member of the original London cast of Dreamgirls for two years, BRIT school alumni Stokes previously appeared in regional productions of Grand Hotel and Aladdin.
When Stokes was only 11 his brother Aaron was stabbed to death at a homeless hostel in New Cross at the age of 24. He dedicated his performance in Dreamgirls to him.
Nick Wakeham reviews:
There are many songs taken from musicals and released as singles normally just to promote the show itself, but what Durone Stokes has done here is something quite different. He is trying to encourage younger audiences to go to the theatre, and especially to musicals, so he has released a version of the song as a more mellow ballad in a modern style and, what do you know, it works.
His soulful voice along with the beautiful arrangement and production make this one of those songs that you could see entering the pop charts. Hopefully his dream of younger audiences getting more interested in the theatre will work and all I can say is: hats off to you! I’d urge people to get this downloaded right away.
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