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.

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.

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.

Sierra Boggess (born May 20, 1982) is an American theater actress and singer.

She was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, with her two sisters, Summer and Allegra. The three of them were members of the Colorado Children's Chorale. Her parents are Kellun Turner and Michael Boggess. She attended George Washington High School and graduated from Millikin University with a BFA in musical theater. She is currently engaged to her Love Never Dies castmate, Tam Mutu.

Before her current success on the stage, she began her career as an understudy for Cosette on the U.S. national tour of Les Misérables. She also originated the roles of Binky and Ram Dass in the musical Princesses. Her previous work includes West Side Story (Maria), The Pirates of Penzance (Mabel), Sweet Charity (Charity) and The Boy Friend (Polly).

Her big break came playing the character Christine Daaé in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom — The Las Vegas Spectacular in Las Vegas in June 2006. Her vocal range is soprano

She made her Broadway debut originating the role of Ariel in the 2007 musical adaptation of the 1989 film The Little Mermaid to critical acclaim. She also starred opposite Kristin Chenoweth in the Encores! production of Music in the Air which ran from Feb. 5-8, 2009 at the New York City Center. Boggess played her final performance as Ariel on May 31, 2009 and was succeeded by understudy Chelsea Morgan Stock.

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.