Three Degrees veteran has room for one man

LIKE the songs says, Valerie Holiday is a Woman in Love.

The longstanding member of The Three Degrees, who had a hit with the song in 1978, has been married for the last 20 years this year and says her husband inspired her debut solo album, In Bloom.

The collection of jazz-flavoured numbers is something she had wanted to do for a long time.

In fact, the album had been in the works for five years when The Three Degrees’ busy touring schedule came to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, so she finally had the time to complete it.

“The break in 2020 gave me the opportunity to go into the studio and have it mixed and mastered in order to produce the finished product,” she says.

“We finally released it on Valentine’s Day last year. It is a mix of standards and covers, some of my favourite songs that I wanted to record.”

Valerie has a long-distance relationship — her husband lives in the UK while she is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

While being coy about the details, even to the extent that she wouldn’t reveal his name, she says the album is “more or less a love album to my husband” and other couples.

“It is kind of like the distance through a relationship,” says Valerie. “When you first meet somebody, you’re all excited and atwitter over them and the excitement that goes along with new love and how it matures and the different stages that you go through… it was like my Valentine’s Day love album.”

The couple used to “hop back and forth” across the Atlantic to see each other before the pandemic led to international travel restrictions and difficulties for her husband travelling.

Valerie says: “He had to jump through a lot of hoops because they kept changing the parameters for flying into the United States.

“First, you had a three-day period where you had to do testing and then it was, no, two days, then it was like, no, 24 hours before and then, ‘When did you fly out? You need to test that morning’.

“We didn’t know whether we were coming or going at one point. We knew we had an airline ticket but we weren’t sure how we were going to get off the ground.

“It has been very interesting, trying to manoeuvre through this pandemic.”

Hopefully, she will have no travel problems when she and the other two Degrees — Freddi Poole and Tabitha King — come to perform at the Kenton Theatre in Henley next month as part out of their European tour.

Tabitha, a late replacement for Helen Scott, who has had to pull out after being struck down by covid-19, is the latest in a long line of women to join the group whereas Valerie has been part of the trio since 1967, just three years after they were formed in Philadelphia.

The original first line-up released their first single, Gee Baby (I’m Sorry) on Swan Records in 1965.

Valerie joined after a pianist friend introduced her to the group’s producer, songwriter Richard Barrett.

But it was not until 1973, when they signed to Philadelphia International Records, that the girls really hit the big time.

Their first major success was with Dirty Ol’ Man, an early allusion to the sexual harassment faced by female artists in the music industry, an issue now better known about thanks to the #MeToo movement.

Valerie says: “Dirty Ol’ Man was our first hit and it started over in Amsterdam because when we tried to release it in the UK it was banned by the BBC.

“That record came out when censors were still in place, when you couldn’t just sing about anything and everything had to be cleared.

“It just started mushrooming around Europe and England kind of felt like, ‘Okay, then I guess we have to go with this, don’t we?’”

The song Year of Decision made it to number 13 in the singles chart but it was their third single, When Will I See You Again, which came out in 1974, that made The Three Degrees a household name.

The song was number 1 in the UK for two weeks, becoming the fourth bestselling single of the year, and reached number 2 in the US charts. The group went on to work with Giorgio Moroder and had four more UK top 20 hits, including Woman In Love, which was originally recorded by Twiggy in 1977.

The women also had a moment in the Hollywood limelight when they appeared in The French Connection (1971) as the vocal group in a nightclub scene, performing Jimmy Webb’s Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon.

They also performed at Buckingham Palace for Prince Charles’s 30th birthday celebrations and attended a reception there where they met Princess Diana to celebrate the couple’s upcoming nuptials.

“It was mind-blowing and exciting when we first came over,” says Valerie, who spent time living in Britain on and off.

“We’ve just kind of fallen in love with the UK and they fell in love with us. It’s great to have that
relationship.”

And talking of love, how are she and her mysterious husband planning to celebrate their 20th anniversary this year now the pandemic is easing?

Valerie says: “We’re hoping that we’re going to be in a better place than we are now, so we’ll be able to do the party planning.”

• The Three Degrees are at the Kenton Theatre on Thursday, March 24 at 7.30pm. All tickets cost £26. The show runs for two hours and 50 minutes, including a 30-minute support act, Richie Salmon, of Soul Kinda Wonderful. For more information and to book, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit www.kentontheatre.co.uk