MY MEMORIES OF EPHRAIM LEWISMY MEMORIES OF EPHRAIM LEWIS
Ephraim
was found hanging out in Stoke on Trent, by an engineer at Axis
Recording Studio, Sheffield, England, Mick Limb and his friend,
John Mayfield. They introduced him to me, at the time I was managing
the recording studio and the band who owned it. Kevin Bacon was
the bass player with the band and together with keyboard player
Jon Quarmby, we were looking for new projects to produce and develop.
In 1988 we persuaded Ephraim to move to Sheffield and began the
long process of development, songwriting, demoing and promoting
the tapes to record labels. We had to release Ephraim from a management
arrangement with a local business man in Stoke. With his few possessions
Ephraim moved into my very small house in Sheffield and work began.
The process of collaboration was laborious, often painful but
frequently inspiring. Ephraim had a real vocal talent which could
invoke a tremendous emotional response. His songs were little
more than sketches, his vocal range was so broad that it took
a long time to help him find his own voice, he could emulate quite
convincingly many of the great soul vocalists particularly referencing
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Al Green. This was fine as a starting
point but in order to create a true artist we needed an integrated
package of vocal and musical identity combined with great songs.
Kevin and Jon assembled a collective of Sheffield based musicians
around Ephraim and the demos began to generate interest particularly
from Muff Winwood at Sony and Alan Omokohje (apologies to Alan,
I have forgotten the spelling of his name) at EMI. Ephraim also
created interest at EMI publishing. The main challenges were resistance
from within the industry, an industry that at the time had had
very little success with black, British, male talent. One off
successes such as Junior Giscombe and Seal, had never translated
into album sales or a sustainable career. Soul was not a major
musical force outside the American mainstream of Alexander O'Neal
and Luther Vandross etc and the youth record market dominated
the 'urban' music scene with rap, house and garage. We were determined
to maintain as much artistic control for Ephraim as possible,
an aim which undoubtedly prolonged the process of getting Ephraim
signed. It was fairly obvious that in order to seal a deal we
needed heavy weight management involvement and this came from
Mick Cater and David Harper, managers of Robert Palmer, a management
team with a London and New York office and twenty years experience
in the business. The deal was eventually done with Elektra, a
label that was establishing a brief UK presence.
At this time I stepped aside and the process of demoing and recording the album began.
There was no bitterness between myself and Ephraim, it was simply a practical solution to his career development. My partner and I were expecting our first child at the time and had become frustrated by the industry, it was time for us to move on, in different directions. I continued to see Ephraim from time to time, but he became swept up in the process of releasing and promoting the album. I seem to remember he supported Robert Palmer at the Royal Albert Hall in London. On the first album he was still really refining his sound and style but it was a great start to his career.
I last had contact with Ephraim at his funeral. I had received a phone call from Kevin his producer to tell me that he had just heard of Ephraim's death in Los Angeles, where he had been checking out collaborators and studios for the recording of the second album. At the time there was nothing to say just an emptiness followed by sadness. When his body was returned to the UK, we hired a mini bus and made the trip to his home town of Wolverhampton for the funeral. The bus was filled with musicians and friends from Sheffield. We arrived at the Chapel, a large Victorian building with a surrounding balcony, a venue full of friends and onlookers. Ephraim had returned to his family, a family with whom he had not always maintained close contact. The family was understandably suspicious of a group of visitors from out of town, particularly given the circumstances of his death. The group was mainly white, mixed girls and boys, gay and straight, a group who considered themselves to be his new family. The sun was shining and we made the trip from the chapel to the cemetery. Wolverhampton is an unattractive industrial town and so it was a surprise to find the cemetery in almost rural land, very green, with trees and fields beyond. Prayers were said, people said their farewells and in accordance with tradition the family were invited forward to fill the grave. I will never forget the sound of the first spade of soil hitting the coffin containing Ephraim's body. After the ceremony, I remember being approached by Ephraim's relatives and friends from Wolverhampton, desperately looking for representatives of his record label and management in an attempt to find out more information about the circumstances of his passing. There was no one there and the reality was they probably knew no more and no less than we did. The funeral party retired to a club back in the centre of Wolverhampton, where we had a pint of beer before making the trip back to Sheffield and a venue to hold a wake of our own.
We quietly speculated about the nature of Ephraim's death but I was never comfortable with prying too deeply, Ephraim was gone and that was that. The rest was too sad, dying alone in a foreign land at the beginning of a promising career, potential unfulfilled. Only now can I think back to the rumours surrounding his death, and it is still not easy. He was seen naked in the apartment complex where he was staying, the police were called, things got heavy, there was talk of the police chasing Ephraim with Tazers, 300,000 plus voltage stun guns for humans, unable to catch him he headed for a third storey window and fell.
We speculated that Ephraim had been 'spiked', with some form of PCP or Angel Dust. Aggressive behaviour was not part of his nature. He dabbled in recreational drugs as many young people and people in the music industry do, but that was all. He was a quiet, uncertain, happy and yet sometimes supremely confident guy. He had his moments of sadness and depression, but who wouldn't working their way through the big task of creating music to touch people. He was genuinely, much loved and respected by all with whom he came into contact in Sheffield's loose music community, and he had the voice of an angel. May his god bless him and care for him wherever he is.
After many years of uncertainty, I finally managed to get a hold of a very detailed 8-page article about the life and death of Ephraim Lewis. A very, very special thanks to John Blake for providing the article, which is transcripted in its entirety on THIS PAGE. The article gives touching details about Ephraim's friends and family, as well as his music, secrets, and his very untimely death.