1990 Peter Blakeley – Henry’s Cafe De Wheels

Peter Blakeley is an Australian White Soul/Adult Contemporary singer and songwriter.

Blakeley was a lead singer for The Rockmelons in the mid-1980s. He launched a solo career in 1987 and had a massive hit single in Australia in 1990 with “Crying in the Chapel”, which was not a remake of the 1950s song “Crying in the Chapel”. In 1990, he won an ARIA award for Single of the year with “Crying in the Chapel”, the first single taken from his album “Harry’s Cafe De Wheels”. The song went platinum in 1990.

Peter Blakeley moved to Los Angeles in 1988 to sign with Capitol Records in the US. The first US release was ‘The Truetone Sessions’ in 1988 on Capitol Records. In 1989, he released the album ‘Harry’s Cafe De Wheel’s, which was executive produced by Peter Asher.

Artists involved with the album included Linda Ronstadt, Siedah Garrett, Wendy Matthews and Andrew Gold, in addition to legendary session musicians such as Jeff Porcaro, Jim Keltner and Larry Klein. The lead single “Crying in the Chapel” was produced by Stewart Levine who worked extensively with Simply Red. Harry’s Cafe De Wheels spawned a total of four singles including, “Crying in the Chapel”, “Quicksand”, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, and “You Never Heard It From Me”. The album was well received and highly successful, especially in Australia and Europe.

Towards the end of 1989, Blakeley contributed vocals to some of the tracks on Cher’s Heart of Stone album, this release was also produced by Peter Asher and featured musical contributions from a number of people involved in the recording of the Harry’s Cafe De Wheels album including, Andrew Gold, Frank Wolf, and Waddy Wachtel.