First Light

It would be neat to describe First Light as the dawn of Paul Hardcastle's career, but that wouldn't be quite true. He actually started out in Direct Drive, a six-piece jazz-funk group who put out two singles on Oval in 1981-82 before keyboard player Paul and vocalist Derek Green stepped out on their own to form First Light who put out two more singles on Oval, 'Horse With No Name'/'Don't Be Mistaken' and 'AM'.

After releasing two singles on London, the duo divided again, with Derek preferring to stay out of the limelight as one of the UK's premier backing singers while Paul set the charts alight time after time. '19' was his biggest hit, number one in the UK for five weeks and in Germany and France for six each, topping the charts in 13 countries altogether during 1985 (on Chrysalis Records). Paul had already had a big-selling single in the States the year before, with the instrumental 'Rain Forest' (top five on the R&B chart, and 19 weeks on the pop chart) and has since become an institution on Smooth Jazz radio stations, alternating albums under the names Jazzmasters and Paul Hardcastle.