Mary was signed by a West London management company, 1st Ave Management, and they were stumped as to which direction to take her career in. Coming from dance music act in Scotland it seemed logical that her music be in a similar genre as she had experience in performing at night clubs from the Time Frequency gigs.

I was deep in my new label Manifesto Records for the parent company Mercury/Polygram, so had my hands really full already and was reluctant to take any more work on alongside managing Pete Tong and producing the BBC's Essential Mix Show, which was in it's early stages of development so needed a lot of brain-space, especially with the BBC itself.

Mary and I first met in Manhattan, New York, where I was working in a major studio on another project. One of Mary's managers was there and was trying to persuade me to take on Mary alongside my other duties as mentioned, he suggested that we, Mary and I, go for a coffee to formally meet each other. Once I sat down alone with Miss Kiani and heard her story, that she was effectively alone in the world, not knowing where her Mother and Father were or relatives, my heart told me that I had to help this girl with her career. I can still remember the feeling as my heart changed my mind from 'I have too much work already' to 'I have to help this girl'.  So on return to the studio I told her manager 'ok, lets see what we can do'. 

More to follow on Mary's story.....

Mary Kiani - When I Call Your Name (BBC Top Pops 1995)