High Energy singer Evelyn Thomas dies, aged 70

However, the follow-up, Doomsday, just missed the Top 40; and Thomas’s albums I Wanna Make It On My Own and Have A Little Faith In Me did not trouble the charts.

Undeterred, she became a fixture of the Northern Soul scene, touring clubs as part of the Chicago Soul Revue, with fellow singers Barbara Pennington and LJ Johnson.

In 1984, she reunited with Levine to record High Energy – a soaring, joyful love song that, in the words of Smash Hits magazine, managed to “straddle both gay disco and old Motown – the two main Hi-NRG ingredients.”

It became a defining song for the genre, marrying Thomas’s gospel-trained, four octave vocals to a pulsing electronic beat. In 2022, Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the top 200 dance songs of all time., external

The song still commands listeners – racking up more than 15 million streams on Spotify.

DJ and music historian Bill Brewster commented, “Evelyn’s voice had this incredible ability to convey both vulnerability and strength. She was a cornerstone of the hi-NRG movement.”