Love City Groove were a musical group who represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995, with their self-titled song after being the winner in a public vote. The song finished tenth with 76 points; and peaked at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart.
The band
Beginnings
Love City Groove were formed by the producer and songwriter Stephen "Beanz" Rudden, who at the time was a staff writer at Warner Chappell Music. Rudden had worked with fellow Warner Chappell writer Tatiana Mais, also known as "Q-Tee", producing one of her songs, and requested that she rap over a song he had written, called "Sentence of Love". Q-Tee, believing that a male rapper was also needed, arrived at the studio with Jay Williams, a student at the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology. Record producer Dave Ambrose (who signed acts including Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys) had asked Rudden to write a "summer anthem" for 1994. Rudden had put the rappers' two songs together with a third, and Paul Hardy came up with the chorus, "In the morning, when the sun shines". According to Hardy, regarding choosing a name for the song, "The song was about love, it was an urban track, so 'city', and I said 'groove'; this then gave us the name 'Love city groove'." In February 1994, Rudden took the rap parts and mixed them in with the new chorus track sung by Hardy. He presented the song to Ambrose at Planet 3 Records, and it was scheduled for release later that year.
Eurovision 1995
However, Jonathan King, then working for BBC Television, tasked with finding and producing an entry for Eurovision, requested that the song be submitted for the "A Song for Europe" contest in 1995.
The final line-up of Love City Groove consisted of Stephen Rudden, rappers Jay Williams and Yinka Charles (a.k.a. "Reason"), and Paul Hardy. The selectors were looking for something a little different from past British Eurovision entries, that better represented what was popular in the charts. The band members were all from different backgrounds, and multi-racial. Hardy's father was from Cyprus, Williams is of Hispanic background, and Reason (Yinka Charles) is Jamaican/Irish.
Their Eurovision entry, chosen by public vote, was named "Love City Groove", and written by Rudden, Hardy, Williams, and Tatiana Mais (aka (Q-Tee). The song was a combination of laid-back soulful background instrumentals overlaid with rap vocals by Williams and the only female band member, Reason, and backed by a full orchestra. It was a contrast from the previous UK entries to the competition, which had all been ballads and pop tunes. Hardy felt that the orchestra ruined the song, not being the right kind of backing for it.
The song was enthusiastically embraced by the tabloids, although less so by papers such as The Independent, which criticised the lyrics and, according to Hardy brought them in for "an interview under the guise of a questionnaire and the questions were designed to make us look stupid".
At Eurovision, held in Ireland that year, the song received a mixed reception from the juries, finishing tenth with 76 points. However it was popular at home and peaked at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, selling over 200,000 copies.
After Eurovision
However the band failed to achieve further success. The follow-up "Soft Spot" missed out on the UK Singles Chart. This was followed by "J.u.m.p." which likewise did not enter the official UK listing. Their debut album Hard Times received a limited release, and sold in small quantities. The group then split from their record label, Planet 3.
The band returned a year later with a cover of the track "I Found Lovin'". With several line-up changes, but not much success, the group finally split up for good.
Solo careers
Stephen Rudden
In the mid-1980s, Rudden worked with various local groups, such as Smell Funky Beast and behind the scenes programming work with British synth-pop dance band Kissing the Pink and then solo instrumental project Plutonic, releasing Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" (CBS Records 1989). This landed him a contract at CBS Records in London and a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music. He then turned Plutonic into the first of many group projects he would helm with "Twilight Zone" (Sony – 1991) and, in 1992, an album for Arista Records, including the singles "One Life" (mixes by Frankie Knuckles and Mike "Hitman" Wilson) and "Sentence of Love" (with a remix by Eric Kuppa).