It's official, It's Heather Small's vocals on Black Box's "Ride On Time".

After years of speculation it has been officially confirmed by M People's Mike Pickering on the website of DeConstruction records that "Heather Small" did indeed lay down the vocals for the smash hit "Ride On Time".

"Tell us about Black Box
What happened was, I got given a white label by an Italian guy on a Friday night at about 9.30, and I thought, "'kin Ell, this is amazing"

Were you playing Love Sensation already by that point?
Yeah I used to already play that, I played that for years... But then I couldn't find him. He didn't come back and there was just this sticker on the record. Anyway, on the Saturday afternoon, Pete rang me at home and said, "Have you heard this record, 'Ride on Time' - Black Box"... I went, "Pete, I can't believe you've said that. I played it last night and this guy brought it in, I didn't know who he was, and he just left it. It's an absolute fucking monster... it's a smash." And I think that Pete and Keith did the deal something like Tuesday afternoon. And then we had all the bollocks with Loletta. But you know the story of that right?

No

I'll let it out the bag. Because we've never really let it out the bag, but we had to re-record those vocals as you know. First of all there's Daniel stood in front of us saying, "It's not a sample" and I'm going to Pete & Keith, "It's a sample" and it turns out that Lolita has no right on it anyway, it's SalSoul, the irish guys who own Salsoul you don't want to get in a row with and Dan Hartman got the cassette of it, and heard it and said, "You can have it for 50% publishing. I love it" So we flew Heather out to where they lived in Italy, and it's Heather on Ride On Time. Yeah it's her vocal. If you listen there's certain giveaways but no-one ever knew!

We had to do it really quick so we could release it, because the original one had the sample on, and we re-placed the sample with Heather.

It's probably the biggest ever Hacienda record. People think it's a big pop hit now, but it was massive. "

So there you have it, enjoy an old classic in a new light:


Thanks to Jono for the heads up.
[Interview source]