Wubi News

Labi Siffre's Something Inside gospel choir reunite

2025-11-01 22:00:11

Beverley Hepburn-Henderson who has travelled from Florida in the US for the reunion said it was great to see everyone again.

"I have not sung with them and some of them I have not seen for over 40 years, so coming back, this is like, 'ok, this is where I left off" she said.

British singer-songwriter and poet Labi Siffre with the choir in the 1980s

Ms Anderson said the friends had been brought up "in the church" in Birmingham and it was "the norm" to be in a choir.

Their parents had come from the Caribbean but "did not get a warm welcome" and went on to contribute to the growth of Pentecostal churches in the UK, she said.

"So it all built out of that. We used to sing, that's what brought us together, but also helped us through hard times."

Angela Brown-Johnson, the youngest in the choir, said she was a big fan when she first joined at 15.

"The volume and the dynamics... I couldn't hear myself sing in the first rehearsal at all. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it," she said.

"It was a nice sort of reunion. Some of them hadn't been in a studio since they did that record so it was like, coming back to it all these years later," he said.

The concert on Saturday at Anchor Point on Chester Street was the finale of the project, he added.

"Just because you're 'senior', let's say that, it doesn't mean the end - you can teach an old dog new tricks."

Labi Siffre, pictured in 1987, is an Ivor Novello Award-winning black British singer-songwriter