About David Nathan
Established as a renowned expert, historian and award-winning music journalist and writer in the world of soul music with almost five decades of accomplishment, London-born global communicator David Nathan has consistently reinvented himself, ever-expanding and expressing his multi-faceted creativity through new and exciting possibilities.
David began his writing career in 1965, forming the first ever appreciation society/fan club for the iconic Nina Simone in the UK the same year. At the age of eighteen, David co-owned the groundbreaking Soul City record store in 1966, with the record label following in 1968. Beginning in 1967, David became a regular contributor to Blues & Soul magazine in London before relocating to the U.S. in 1975 where he served as U.S. editor for the publication for several decades.
From 1988 to 2004, David wrote prolifically for Billboard and a number of other well-known publications including Black Radio Exclusive (BRE) and USA Today, and penned bios for hundreds of artists including Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Luther Vandross, Usher and Dionne Warwick among many others. He’s the author of two books including the acclaimed, “The Soulful Divas” (1999). David – nicknamed ‘The British Ambassador of Soul’ during his three-plus decades in the US – has also been a media coach working with Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight and Mary J. Bligee, among others. He has appeared as an expert on soul music on a number of documentaries and television programmes on Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Lionel Richie, Phyllis Hyman and others on both sides of the Atlantic.
The former secretary of The Rhythm & Blues Foundation and recipient of the first journalist award from The International Association Of African-American Music, he’s produced and written liner notes for box sets (Earth, Wind & Fire, Curtis Mayfield, etc.) and reissue CDs for over a thousand projects, including series for his own Ichiban Soul Classics and Ambassador Soul Classics imprints.
David returned to London in 2009 and established SoulMusic Records (SMR) as the UK’s leading soul music reissue label with over two hundred titles in its catalog of classic recordings by legendary artists such as Phyllis Hyman, Deniece Williams, Dionne Warwick, Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, David Sanborn and many more. The digital arm of SoulMusic Records (distributed by Warner X worldwide) includes recordings by such iconic artists as Larry Graham, The Spinners, Lenny Williams and The Stylistics among others
David is also an active recording artist with current releases under his musical pseudonym, Pharaoh’s Dream with his own Nefer Music International label including a personal tribute to Nina Simone and the 2021 single release, “Follow” (featuring Najee). As a songwriter, David has collaborated on a number of compositions with Preston Glass, recorded by Grady Harrell & Brenda Lee Eager, The Spinners, Jermaine Lockhart and other, with two UK soul-charting tracks, “Games We Play (In Love)” and “Another Lover Down.” Earlier compositions from 1978, such as “Ain’t Nothing Like The Love” (a Philly soul-flavoured song penned with the late John Simmons, the former musical director for Whitney Houston and the late Phillip Ballou, former primary touring and studio vocalist with Luther Vandross) have received renewed attention in 2017 via samples and reissues.
As of 2021, David’s current focus is on his musical memoirs, ‘The Diary Of A British Soul Man’ and as a sought-after industry consultant and music historian contributing as a co-producer and liner notes writer to the first-ever career retrospective “Aretha” 4CD box set on Rhino Records released in the summer of 2021 in conjunction with the official biopic on ‘The Queen Of Soul.’
David credits a 1975 interview with Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White as a ‘life-changing’ conversation, inspiring his interest in spirituality, metaphysics and Ancient Egypt, manifesting in a new book, “Through 7 Lives – My Soul Deep Connections,” due for publication by Balboa Press in 2022; his first book of what he calls ‘soulful poetry,’ entitled “Like…The First Time You Heard Chaka Khan!” – a highly personal collection written in 2007 and inspired by soul music artists published by Street Angels Books in March 2022 – has become an eBook #1 best seller on Amazon within weeks of publication.
Contact: David Nathan, david@davidnathan.com