CDB is an Australian R&B and dance group that started out in the 1990s, best known for their cover of Earth, Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove". Its original members were brothers Gary Pinto and Brad Pinto, as well as Andrew De Silva and Danny Williams. Jude Nicholas joined the group when De Silva left.
Contents |
Originally from Dandenong, the band formed in 1991 as teenagers and performed local gigs for several years before being signed to Sony in 1994. Prior to this, the band provided backing vocals to Peter Andre in a number of his songs. Their debut album was Glide With Me, from which the first two singles "Hook Me Up" and "Hey Girl" were successful. It was the third single, which launched them into the public. The group did a cover song of "Let's Groove" by Earth, Wind & Fire and it reached number 2 on the Australian singles chart in 1995 and selling about 70,000 singles. Glide With Me went on to generate 4 hit singles in total and went platinum.
Following the success of Glide With Me, the band announced an upcoming fifth single "Freak Show", however it was never released.
A second album, Lifted, was released in 1997. Jude Nicholas joined the group for this release, replacing Andrew De Silva. The album featured a more pop-oriented sound and was much less successful than their first. The album produced 3 singles. Originally, Sony Music intended to release the title track as a single in its own right but the album was instead later repackaged and released together with another single, "So Badd", in an attempt to generate further sales which proved to be unsuccessful. The track, which initially featured on the first printing, was re-recorded to replace the vocals of De Silva with those of Nicholas. CDB then collaborated with Tommy Emmanuel and Renee Geyer, both singles failed. Arguably, De Silva's absence contributed to the lack of direction seemingly.
There was word of a third album being recorded but this did not eventuate as a result of the band's demise.
In 1999 the band broke up reportedly to concentrate on solo efforts. Since then Brad and Gary Pinto [1] have worked on backing vocals for several series of Australian Idol and have worked extensively with Guy Sebastian. A Gary solo album featuring the single "What The Day Brings" was recorded in 2001 but was shelved. Gary co-wrote the theme for World Youth Day 2008, Receive The Power with Guy and penned Behold The Cross which features on the WYD08 Official Soundtrack. Gary recently co-wrote and recorded the song 'Saint Mary MacKillop' as endorsed by the Sisters of Saint Joseph for the Canonisation of Australia's first Saint, Mary MacKillop on 17 October 2010. He has now released two further albums, one for his Music Ministry in schools - "As-U-R Volume 1" (2010) and also his new solo album "Take Back Our World" (2010). Andrew De Silva reached the top 40 with solo single "Just Like Good Music" in 2005, but no album release eventuated.
In 2006 CDB was asked to reunite to play some charity shows, after which they reportedly reformed. The band went on to record songs for Myer shopping centre in the 2006 Spirit of Christmas album and for the ABC's Anthems of Australia initiative. In 2008 an album of Funk covers, The Funk Sessions was scheduled for release, but was shelved after the failure of lead single "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (a cover of the Michael Jackson song).
A best-of compilation, The Essential CDB will be released through Sony music on 30 October 2010.
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUS [1] |
NZL [2] |
||
| 1995 | Glide with Me
|
6 | 12 |
| 1997 | Lifted
|
45 | — |
| 2010 | The Essential CDB
|
— | |
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUS [3] |
NZL [4] |
||
| 1994 | Hook Me Up | 11 | — |
| 1995 | Hey Girl (This Is Our Time) | 14 | 1 |
| Let's Groove | 2 | 1 | |
| 1996 | Don't Stop | 28 | 25 |
| 1997 | Good Times | 28 | — |
| 1998 | Lifted | — | |
| I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (with Renée Geyer) | — | — | |
| 2008 | PYT | — | — |
| "—" denotes the single didn't chart | |||
Andrew De Silva (solo):
Gary Pinto (solo):