Chart entered : 23 July 1988
Chart peak : 47
Since her prodigious debut with "Shame" in 1978, Evelyn had enjoyed a frustrating career on both sides of the Atlantic, alternating between minor hits and misses, only really breaking the pattern with "Love Come Down" a number 7 hit in the UK in 1982. She dropped the "Champagne" tag in 1980 but restored it a few years later.
"Hold On To What You've Got" was the second of three singles taken from her album "Flirt" and the only one to be a hit. It was co-written ( with Gene Dozier ) and produced by Shalamar producer Leon F Sylvers III. It's a contemporary house track and Evelyn , still in her twenties , appeared in the video with big hair and shoulder pads. The lyrical conceit is interesting , a secretary to a rich man telling him she can't be bought and Evelyn's vocal class puts this ahead of the likes of Janet Jackson but it's just not the sort of thing to excite me.
The follow-up "Kisses Don't Lie" written by Ron Kersey and Alex Brown is a sultry electro-ballad in the Jam and Lewis mould and is utterly generic.
The lead single for her next album "The Girl Next Door" was "Day To Day" in 1989 a collaboration with house outfit Ten City which is all groove and no hooks. Evelyn now sounds uncannily like Gladys Knight but that wasn't enough to sell the single. The next one "Do Right" , again written by Sylvers, is a forgettable Jam & Lewis stle R & B number. With no hits, the album didn't sell and EMI - Manhattan let her go.
Evelyn was now in the unenviable position of being washed-up before she was thirty. She didn't write and without a major label behind her had no access to the top producers. She made a last appearance in the chart in 1992 when Altern-8 tackled "Shame" and gave her a "Vs" credit. It spent a week at number 74.
Evelyn had to come to England to make her next album for the London-based soul label Expansion in 1995 . Unlike any of her previous albums Evelyn had a hand in writing half the tracks on "I'll Keep A Light On".The only single was "I Think About You". It's tasteful Brit-Soul in the M People mould with Evelyn in good form vocally but there's no killer hook there. The album is a competent contemporary soul album with nothing that was going to get much attention at the height of Brit-pop apart from the suspicious bleached and airbrushed picture of Evelyn on the sleeve.
Also in 1995, Evelyn married her long time partner , guitarist and producer Freddie Fox.
She was featured vocalist on a single "One More Time" by Al Mack's project Divas of Color in 1996 then dropped out of the music business for some years. In 2006 she nearly died from a fibroid complaint which seems to have prompted her comeback in 2008 with a new album "Open Book". The single "The Dance" a fast electronic number with not-so-sly references to her earlier hits is a little too arch but there's one or two better tracks on the album like the slinky opener "Skillz" and the autobiographical ballad "Open Book". Alas when your time's gone it's hard to raise much interest however good your material and Evelyn's comeback went largely unnoticed.
Since then she's appeared on a single "Everybody" by house producer Miguel Migs in 2011.
She was in the retro-flavoured video although somewhat larger than she was in disco's heyday. The track unfortunately is house-by-numbers and completely uninteresting.
Evelyn now tours for a living and has just finished a package tour of the UK with contemporaries like Melba Moore and Rose Royce .
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