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STAYING POWER
East 17’s Stay Another Day in bid for Christmas No1 again as Boyz On Block team up with Tony Mortimer for new version
IT beat Mariah Carey’s festive classic All I Want For Christmas to the top of the charts 26 years ago and East 17’s Stay Another Day is going to have another pop at No1.
But this time it’ll be super-group Boyz On Block competing for the festive top spot by covering it with help from the man who wrote it, Tony Mortimer.
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The four piece are made up of boyband favourites Another Level's Dane Bowers, Boyzone's Shane Lynch, 5ive’s Abz Love and Phats and Small’s Ben Ofoedu.
And they have the blessing from the East 17 star, who also features on the record on piano, but not from the rest of the band.
In an exclusive chat, Ben said: “Tony absolutely loves it. We were blessed to have him involved.
"There’s one thing covering a song, but once you get the nod from the original creator of the song, and knowing what that song means to him, was just the most amazing thing.
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“Sometimes when you cover songs you very rarely get acknowledged by the writer of the song.
“But the fact that the writer knew about it and gave you the green light and played on the record is the most amazing thing.”
The lads, who formed in July 2019, were in the middle of recording a new album when Ben made the suggestion of covering it for Christmas.
He said of the single, which is out on November 20 and can be : “The rest of the East 17 boys don’t know we’ve done it. They’ll be as surprised as the readers are.”
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The band also roped in former local church gospel choir The Tabs from Lewisham, South East London, and recreated the famous East 17 – who also include Brian Harvey, John Hendy, and Terry Coldwell - all-white outfits that helped the song spend five weeks at No1 in 1994.
Dane said: “We deliberately didn’t want to get all dressed up. We didn’t want to do the fake snow. We wanted to make it as casual as we could.
“I think the way it’s been recorded is different, you can tell that it’s a newer version. For me, I think Abz’s verse is pretty much how the verse should have been sung. He kills it.”
Tony added: “I love it. I think it’s a brilliant version.”
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While the emotional ballad is often associated with lost love and relationships gone wrong, the real inspiration is much darker.
Tony, who won an Ivor Novello songwriting award for the track, wrote it about his brother Ollie’s suicide as well as the final 24 hours of a friend’s father’s life.
He never intended it to be released as a Christmas song, with label bosses only adding bells to make the most of the festive market.
Tony says: “I didn’t think Stay would be a single let alone achieve what it did and still have people into it 26 years later. It’s very humbling.
"I’m a huge fan of all the boys individually and I was really excited to hear their version collectively.
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"I was honoured I could play the piano on it and Abz’s lead vocal has just blown me away, I love it. I think it’s a brilliant version.”
The boys call Tony’s involvement a “Christmas present in itself” and even dedicated it to him for his 50th birthday.
It comes as Ladbaby, who has had the Christmas No1 for the last two years, has his eyes on a third.
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The race to being on top on December 22 is on.
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