New Clear Days was The Vapors's 1980 debut album containing the UK hit single "Turning Japanese", which reached No. 3 in the chart in February 1980. A remix of "News at Ten" (named after the well known ITV news programme), went to No. 45 in July of that year. A third single, a re-recording of "Waiting for the Weekend" which included a horn section, failed to chart.

The title is a pun on Nuclear - nuclear weapons and power stations being major issues at that time. The album cover shows a rather grimy television screen displaying a BBC TV weather forecast. Among the symbols for clouds is one centred over London which is, upon closer examination, a mushroom cloud. In addition, one of the temperature symbols has been replaced with one warning of radiation and the weatherman glows.

"News at Ten", a cynical examination of the generation gap and the fear of ending up as complacent as the parent he despises for his conformism, was expected to be a hit on the back of the success of "Turning Japanese"; its poorer performance was blamed in part by the long-running strike at the BBC's Top Of The Pops which meant it received very little media exposure. There was also a marked reluctance by BBC Radio 1 - then the nation's premier radio station - to play a song named after an ITV programme.

Luther Barnes is a record producer, director, songwriter, composer and lead singer of Luther Barnes and the Sunset Jubilaires and the Red Budd Gospel Choir.

Barnes is an ordained minister & native son of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He is the second eldest son to Faircloth Barnes, who wrote the famous "Rough Side of the Mountain." He was born on March 10, 1954 and has three brothers, Samuel Barnes (Rocky Mount), Melvin Barnes (Knightdale), Tony Bernard Barnes (Rocky Mount).

As an executive producer of Gospel Music, he has released over twenty-eight CDs. He has performed with gospel recording artists such as Shirley Caesar, Deborah Barnes, Kirk Franklin, Harvey Watkins and The Canton Spirituals, Lee Williams and the Spiritual QC's, Dorothy Norwood, John P. Kee, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. In 2005 he recorded with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir on their release "I'm Amazed" Live. He sung the National Anthem for Carolina Mudcats Baseball Game.

He is a graduate of the Nash-Rocky Mount Schools System and a retired teacher. A 1976 graduate of St. Augustine's College (Raleigh) NC, he obtained a B.A. degree in Music Education. He was honored as a Distinguished Graduate in February 2008.

Jared Drake Bell (born June 27, 1986), better known as Drake Bell, is an American actor, comedian, musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional television director. After beginning his career as a child star in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he appeared on The Amanda Show and became well-known among young audiences for his role on the series Drake & Josh while playing Drake Parker. As of 2010, Drake Bell remains one of Nickelodeon's most popular stars ever and has won nine Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. His latest film role is the live-action Timmy Turner in the TV film A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! shown on July 9, 2011, on Nickelodeon; he is also the voice of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man on Disney XD. Bell is commonly associated with his real-life friend Josh Peck, who co-starred with him in The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh.

In addition to acting, Bell has a growing career as a musician, and co-wrote and performed the theme song to Drake & Josh, entitled "I Found a Way". In 2005 he independently released his debut album, Telegraph. His second album, It's Only Time, was released in 2006 after signing with Universal Motown Records.

Jocelyn Eve Stoker (born 11 April 1987), better known by her stage name Joss Stone, is an English soul singer-songwriter and actress. Stone rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, the equally multiplatinum Mind Body & Soul, topped the UK Albums Chart for one week and spawned the top ten hit "You Had Me", Stone's most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both album and single each received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist, and in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2004 was ranked fifth as a predicted breakthrough act of 2004. She became the youngest British female singer to top the UK Albums Chart in history to have her first album at number one. In early 2009, she joined the eclectic supergroup SuperHeavy.

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE (born 8 January 1937), is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the mid-1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century". In the US, in particular, she is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979) and is the only artist to record more than one Bond theme song. Bassey is also a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

"Born above a brothel in a docklands slum", Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and last child of Eliza Jane Start and Henry Bassey in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (now called Cardiff Bay), of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent. Bassey's mother also had four children from previous relationships, two of whom lived in the Bassey household. Eliza had married previously, to Alfred Metcalfe, and upon her marriage to Bassey, Eliza Jane Metcalfe listed Alfred Metcalfe as her father on the marriage registry. It has thus been theorized that she never divorced Alfred, and that her marriage to Bassey was bigamous. Eliza and Henry's second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother. A year later her father was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor, was tried, imprisoned for five years, then deported. After Henry's arrest, Eliza and the children moved to the nearby steelworking district of Splott.