Simon Soussan

Simon Soussan is an music producer of French-Morroccan decent. He first became known in the U.K. due to selling Northern Soul 7"s to collectors, both original copies and bootleg copies from his base in Leeds. He also produced versions of Northern Soul tracks, released on his Soul Fox Records and Soul Galore labels. He produced some new tracks which were released under established names without the actual artist's involvement, such as Lorraine Chandler on his Black Magic record label.

Soussan was involved with the amazing story of how Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Deed I Do)" became the most expensive Northern Soul 7" ever sold. He befriended Tom DePierro at Motown Records, who had discovered one of the only two copies of the single in existence. According to Frank Wilson, the rest were destroyed after Berry Gordy gave him the choice of being an artist or a producer. Soussan borrowed the copy from DePierro and bootlegged it before selling in to Les McCutcheon, future manager of the band Shakatak. The bootleg was slightly sped up and released under the name Eddie Foster, and that version became a Wigan Casino classic. The original copies of the single have since gone on to sell for £15,000 and £25,000.

Re-locating to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, Soussan set up a record-exporting business in collaboration with Selectadisc in Nottingham. Soon he began to produce artists during the disco era of the 1980s.^[1] He produced Shalamar, Patti Brooks, Santa Esmeralda, Jessica Williams with Arpeggio and the electro group French Kiss, Romance, Charisma, Nicole Stone, Spice of Life, as well as recording with his namesake Simon Orchestra.^[2] Soussan scored hits with Jessica Williams "Queen of Fools", and Arpeggio "Love and Desire". While French Kiss had a hit with Panic (French Kiss song).^[3] He founded Harem Records, devoted to disco music, which entered a joint venture 1985 Bluebonnet Records and a distribution agreement with RCA Records.^[4]

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