For much of my career (starting back with the formation of Soul City Records in 1966 with Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore), my work life has centred around the world of R&B and soul music.  The three books that I have authored – “Lionel Richie: An Illustrated Biography” (1985), “The Soulful Divas” (1999)  and (co-authored by Sylvia Hampton), “Nina Simone: Break Down & Let It All Out” (2004) – have been, quite naturally, focused on subjects directly related to my tenure as a soulful scribe!

I had what I consider a life-shifting conversation with Maurice White, the visionary leader and founder of supergroup Earth, Wind & Fire in an interview for the first cover story on the group for Britain’s Blues & Soul magazine in July 1975,  During that first of many conversations with Maurice (who I worked with directly in 1985), we talked about the subject matter of the lyrics for songs such as “Keep Your Head To The Sky,” “Devotion,” “Open Our Eyes” and “That’s The Way Of The World” among others and how he had studied world religions and philosophies, in particular during visits to Asia when he was touring as the drummer with The Ramsey Lewis Trio.

Maurice shared during our hour-long encounter – aboard a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle – how he had spent time looking at what he felt his purpose in life was and, in a personal aside, we talked about the idea or concept of reincarnation and past lives; when I showed a specific interest in the subject which seemed to seep into some of the songs that EW&F had been recording, Maurice wrote down the names of two books for me to find at an esoteric bookstore in New York when I returned there, “Seth Speaks” by Jane Roberts and “The Ultimate Frontier” by Eklal Kueshana.  Both books had a profound impact on my view on life and specficially, the depiction of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhnaton on the cover of Kueshana’s book drew me in.

Over the years that followed when I lived in New York as the resident correspondent for Blues & Soul, I began to read up more and more about Akhnaton, a visionary, poet and pacificst and his life in 1300 BC.  Certainly, Maurice’s prompting and my subsequent deepening interest in matters of the soul shifted and shaped so much of how I approached my own journey.

In 1978,  I wrote a poem, “My History Is All In My Face,”  in which I described what I could only call ‘past lives’ or previous incarnations, referencing being a prince sold into slavery, a voodoo priest, a blues singer and a monk.  The source of the poem?  It was whatever I was ‘channelling’ or ‘tapping into’ at the time on another level.  My awarness of the ‘sense’ of my soul or spirit beyond the physical realm had been elevated in my conversation with Maurice and subsequent studies of different philsophies and approaches to life as a human being. Originally handwritten, I had typed up the poem and kept it….through years of travel, moving from New York to Los Angeles (in 1984) then back to London (in 2009), the original typewritten poem is still with me, along with other poems and lyrics I penned during the late ’70s and early ’80s.

I found the poem a few years ago and it sparked my already-keen interest in ‘past lives,’ assisted by a series of amazing sessions in Los Angeles with renowned clinical hypnotherapist Stephanie Jourdan.  As I began to review my life experiences, I noticed how much I was drawn to different cultures, places and people that were not part of my everyday surroundings whch seemed to show up in the poem – and beyond!

In the summer of 2014, I began to write a series of short episodes about six characters , some referenced in the 1978 poem: Smenkhare (a historical figure from the same reign as Akhnaton in Egypt); Norbu, a Nepalese monk; Ponnleu, a Cambodian concubine/temple dancer; Houngan, a Haitian voodoo priest; Touvalou, a prince from Dahomey, sold as a slave in America; and Beulah, a talented but unsuccessful blues singer.

As I looked further at the choices of writing the stories of each, I realised how specific events, places, people and circumstances I had encountered in my ‘David Nathan’ life were very much related to the characters themselves.  I saw that indeed these were – and are – my ‘soul deep’ connections to them.The resulting book, which has been through a number of iterations and title changes, has been awaiting ‘birth’ for a while now and by the time it is published in 2025, it will be almost ten years in the making!

Since I do operate in life from comprehending that everything happens in its own time, I’m clear that some of the ‘soul deep connections’ (like finally going to Cambodia twice – in 2018 and 2019 as well the ongoing studies of Egyptian mummies that relate to Smenkhare and his 18th Dynasty family) have occurred since I began having these stories show up on the pages of “Through 7 Lives.”

I’m aware that I am known as ‘The British Ambassador Of Soul’ and given my passion for ‘soul’ music, it’s not a big leap to consider that I also have a deep interest ‘the soul’!  In fact, when I was asked how I would define the genre itself, I said, ‘It’s music of the soul for the soul’ and indeed that is how I relate to it.

Ahead of its planned publication, I invite you to read the free excepts  (available to download),  both from the stories and my ‘soul deep connections’ to each of the six characters, along with the seventh chapter which provides some basis for my memoirs!

CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOADS OF EACH OR ALL OF THE CHAPTERS!

With special thanks to Ganesh Makam, Nya Fleron, Michael Pane, Stephanie Jourdan and Hazel Martin

In gratitude and appeciation,

David N, September 23, 2024