FR' Mystery

Tony Henry was originally going to keep the 52nd Street name active and carry on releasing music under the heading. Lorna Bailey a music graduate from Birmingham but studying at Manchester University joined him in 1990. After a dormant year at Virgin\10, they finally released Henry from his contract and allowed him to take the 52nd Street name. Cool Down Zone were still in that period signed to the label. Henry and Bailey worked on songs for almost a year. The sound and direction they created was more akin to gospel tinged Nubian Soul. The two standout tracks 'I Just Wanna Be' and 'Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt' got the attention in 1991 of A&R Director Pete Edge at WEA Records UK. In order not to cause confusion between the two acts, as Henry remained close friends with his former band mates and would invite both Tony Bowry and Mike Wilson to play on various tracks, a decision was made to retire the 52nd Street name and thus FR' Mystery was born. Whilst discussions at WEA were progressing, Edge was offered a major position in New York which he took with immediate affect. Edge suggested that FR' Mystery did the deal with him in New York but Bailey still had a year and a half at university and Henry had just returned from living in LA, recording (in his words) a terrible third 52nd Street album. Henry decided to take FR' Mystery down the independent route instead. With financial help from the band's music publishers Virgin Music, Tony Henry formed record label Gwarn Music in 1991. In 1994 he was invited to bring the label to New Order manager Rob Gretton's Rob's Records for distribution. Gretton had invited 52nd Street to come to Factory Records in 1982.