WHEN jingle writer Colin Day was challenged by his wife to write her a love song, little did he know that within years it would turn into a brand-new career, with sell-out singles and a deal with Charly Records to release an album.
After the self-confessed 67-year-old soul boy set about writing a private and very personal tribute to Emma, from his bedroom studio in Bromsgrove, a new family tradition began.
He continued to pen a melody for birthdays and Valentine’s Day, little thinking that anyone outside his close circle would ever hear them.
Fast forward to 2025, and Colin’s first album, Riker Up!, drops on Friday, December 12, on the heritage label, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
The vinyl features 14 soulful tracks (plus an extra six on CD), in homage to the sounds of the sixties, all created by Colin, however, with production and vocals courtesy of the latest AI software.
The result, says Charly, ‘brand new songs that play like long lost classics’ – which certainly can’t be denied.
In a departure from its usual re-issuing of old music, Charly told the Observer that they think it is the ‘world’s first AI-assisted physical album release’.
Controversial, yes. But more on that later, as Colin, who grew up in Worcester, takes up the story.
Colin Day at home in his studio. Picture by Marcus Mingins 4225012MMR
“This whole thing, it’s all been one big happy accident. I’ve spent years working with sound, writing and producing voice-overs and jingles. I’ve written over 200 jingles, but never a song.
“It was Emma who said I bet you could write one.”
So with Christmas coming up, Colin said he’d write her a song as a present on two conditions.
He couldn’t write a modern song because his heart was in the 1960s, and he made her promise he’d never have to play it to anybody else.
“Almost 10 years ago now, I wrote that song. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but something clicked, and some of the lines just poured out, whilst others took weeks to get right. But there was a moment where I thought, hang on, I could actually be good at this.”
He played the song called ‘Why Did It Take So Long?’ about the night they first met, to Emma, and of course, she loved it.
“I had written in a very sort of retro 1960s style, and after that, it just became a thing. As birthdays came up, I would write another song for her because by this time, I loved the process and the creative challenge.”
Over time, Colin built up a sort of album’s worth of songs, but didn’t have a plan to do anything with them. Encouraged by other people’s enthusiastic responses, he decided to make a private LP as a family keepsake.
Last year became a turning point as Colin discovered AI-powered studio software came on the scene. He became obsessed with the new technology, spending thousands of hours working late into the night.
“It was like I’d stepped into a time machine, and was back in Detroit or Chicago in 1967, because I started programming my songs into it, and it was coming back with these mid-60s soul sounds,” he explains. “They sounded authentically vintage Northern Soul records.
“I started adding my own little extra bits, but a guitar, a bit of percussion here and there, just to bring some more musicality to them. And then they really came alive.”
Colin got some demo records pressed and sent them to Northern Soul DJs that he’d admired for years for some feedback.
The result, “The phone just started pinging. They assumed that they were unreleased recordings from the ’60s. I didn’t correct them because I wanted an unbiased opinion.
“People wanted to know where they had come from, who had the rights to them. It created quite a buzz.”
Colin recalls he was now in an ‘awkward spot’ because he was sitting on this big secret. “At this point, nobody knew that they were songs that I’ve written in Bromsgrove over the last few years, and only produced them this year.”
He eventually went on one of the specialist Northern Soul radio stations, confessed everything and made the decision to create his own record label to release the singles officially.
Riker Records was born, the world’s first ‘fantasy soul’ label, says Colin, who went on to sell six limited-edition singles (555 copies of each) virtually on pre-release.
“The label only came out because of the demand for it. And I’ve just been swept along by the whole thing ever since. There was never any grand plan. It came out of my love of music, and frankly, with my love for Emma writing the songs.”
Not surprisingly, the whole enterprise has created some controversy in the Northern Soul scene. Colin says that people fall into three camps, with some saying they don’t care how the singles were made, they want to buy them.
Then many in the middle say they’re not sure how they feel about the AI, but quite like the music, and finally, die-hards who think it’s the work of the devil and computers have no place in soul music.
“I don’t want to downplay what AI brings to it,” he says, “But it’s like a cake.
“The bottom layer is the song, the lyrics, the chords, the melody. The next layer is where the AI comes in, with the arrangement and the vocals.”
Colin says he totally understands and respects all of those opinions.
“I’m not out to start a movement or create a new genre. I’m not an expert on AI, and certainly no expert on the ethics of it, so I genuinely share those concerns, but what I would say is that these new computer systems are fantastic.
“They allow us to tap into musical creativity in ways which we could not have imagined even 10 years ago,” adding the proviso, “The software is full of data, but it’s got no taste, heart or soul. It depends on a human to drive it.”
He adds, “We don’t know where this is going, and right at the very beginning of this journey. I am not setting out to convince anybody who doesn’t want to be convinced – in fact, I completely see their point of view and totally respect it.”
Colin says it still blows his mind that all the vocals that sound so soulful and realistic all come from the software.
“I’ve had a great career up to now. I thought that was winding down and was happily calling myself semi-retired, but now I’ve got a brand new career in the music business as a record producer, and I’m busier than ever.
“Charly approached me and asked me if I wanted to compile them into an album. And that pretty much brings us up to where we are.
“[The songs] were never meant to be universal – they had very private and personal lyrics in them.
“It blows my and Emma’s minds that other people are connecting with them.
“Every day I have another pinch myself moment.”
