Evelyn Thomas was known for songs like “Masquerade,” “Reflections,” and her biggest hit, “High Energy.”
A recognizable voice from dance music’s post-disco hi-NRG period breathed her last as vocalist Evelyn Thomas passed away yesterday, July 21 at age 70.
The news was broken in a Facebook post by Thomas’ longtime collaborator and UK Northern Soul DJ Ian Levine. Toward the end of a long account that detailed their time working together, he shared that he and Thomas had fallen out of contact in 2009, but then she reached out to him earlier this year, “knowing she was dying.”
Levine wrote, “Fiachra Trench and I, reunited after thirty five years, immediately dropped everything and wrote one last song for her, a wonderful uplifting song called ‘Inspirational’. She loved it and she really wanted to sing it, but her health deteriorated far too fast and she simply could not do it.“
Thomas’ daughter Kimberly, who also sings under the stage name YaYa Diamond and plans to finish the track for her mother, also shared a tribute on Facebook. “The legacy that my mother left me is beyond words and the memories are undeniably beyond any monetary value,” it read. “I want to thank everyone for their prayers and kind words.“
Evelyn Thomas was born in 1953 to a family of musicians as her mother was a church organist and her grandmother sang in the church choir. She was singing with her band, The Move Mixers, when Levine met her in 1975 and enlisted her to contribute vocals to Northern Soul singles like “Weak Spot” and “Doomsday.”
The two worked together on a number of other singles, not the least of which was “High Energy,” also a collaboration with Trench. The 1984 release cemented Thomas as a vocalist closely associated with hi-NRG, which evolved out of disco and incorporated more synthesizers than its parent genre typically did.
We here at EDM Identity offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Evelyn Thomas during what can only be a difficult time.
