Gemma - "Why Don't You Do What's Right"

[Birdseed]

Hello, I'm new here and I have a question about a 7" single I recently bought at a thrift store, which I can find bugger all information about on the internet.

It's "Why Don't You Do What's Right" by Gemma, released on danish dance label MEGA records with the catalogue number MRCS2026 in 1984. Despite this it's obviously British, having been produced by John Devereaux and W Ott and written by Andy Clark and John Hern. The B-side is "Fast Forward".

The sound is very fast Hi-NRG (upwards of 140 bpm) with the usual staccato bassline, but the melody is rather more synth-pop with a very obviously "Don't You Want Me Baby"-derived theme and male-female duet structure. Despite this it's actually rather good.

Any info on this track? I'm playing it tonight on the radio, hope to be able to say something about it then.

[Birdseed]

I'm going to bump this. It's still extremely unusual for me to own a record which has literally no mentions on google except the ones I've made myself.

[Birdseed]

Karel off these forums contacted me to see if the artist Gemma was a dutch girl group singer. I've sent him a picture of the sleeve which I'm also attaching below, together with a scan of the label. I thought someone here might be interested, but the woman on the record sounds very British indeed. :)

001.jpg 002.jpg

In the four years since I posted this, I've not found out a whole lot more about the record, except one thing - an instrumental version of the track is part of a record the same Andy Clark did for library music label KPM, which I heard when it turned up on one of datasette.net's "Business Funk" mixtapes. So that would be a starting point. :)

[Videoskooter]

I'm pretty sure that's Gemma Van Eck from Dutch Pop band Babe, she also put out some solo tracks.

[Karel]

I'm pretty sure that's Gemma Van Eck from Dutch Pop band Babe

You're absolutely right. It's Gemma Van Eck indeed.
The 7" Birdseed refers to is a Danish release on Mega. Originally the record was issued on Penta Music, a small subsidiary of Polygram. Currently Gemma (born 1957) is a musical star in Holland.

Gemma van Eck 45 discography >