Chart entered : 15 November 1986
Chart peak : 60
When we said hello to Phil he was a member of the group Kandidate. They ran out of steam, after four hits, in 1981. Phil had invested his earnings wisely in a home studio and soon started releasing his own records under the name "Phil Fearon and Galaxy" ( or some similar variant ) . Galaxy were basically a studio collective but the girls who sang on the records, Dee Galdes and Julie Gore , appeared on Top of the Pops with him. The records were very lightweight dance pop but he chalked up a string of hits , the biggest being the first , "Dancing Tight" which reached number 4. Latterly Phil found it hard to keep up the pace so the last few Galaxy singles were covers like this one.
"Ain't Nothing But A Houseparty" is a cover of The Showstoppers' R & B hit of 1968, a Northern Soul favourite. For this one Phil contracted out the production as well, bringing in our friends Stock, Aitken and Waterman. They supply the house backing track and it's very easy to sing Mel and Kim's Respectable over the top of it. Phil's voice is too airy and smooth to conjure up much of the excitement of the original and it's more suited to a suburban Tupperware party than an all-night rave.
And that was just about it for Phil as a performer. In 1987 he retreated behind the mixing desk and founded Production House Records to feed the underground rave scene. He also married Dee and began a large family. These two preoccupations came together in the early nineties when Dee began recording under the name Baby D , resulting in the major crossover hit "Let Me Be Your Fantasy " which hit number 1 in 1994. Acen also scored a hit on the label.
In 2010 Phil's daughter Stephanie was a semi-finalist in the BBC 1 talent contest Over The Rainbow and that seems to have inspired him to return to performing himself and he has appeared at soul weekenders across the country in the last few years.
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