Grace

Grace originated as a partnership uniting seasoned dance music craftsmen Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne alongside singer Dominique Atkins, after the two producers set out to locate an untested voice from outside club circles for their latest venture. Although the performer they found satisfied that criterion, she actually brought prior experience as a jazz vocalist whose career onstage had started at age 13, when her father—a jazz trumpeter—began escorting her to venues near the family residence in Thornton Heath, London. Once the three musicians combined efforts, they released the single “Not Over Yet,” which became a U.K. club success on Oakenfold’s Perfecto Records imprint. Late in 1996 the group issued its first full-length recording, If I Could Fly. Two years afterward came the follow-up Gathering in the Wheat.