Shannon In the summer of 1983 a young African American woman named Brenda Shannon Greene was enrolled in York College and toured with the New York Jazz Ensemble while she heard that Mark Liggett and Chris Barbosa were looking for a singer to lay the vocals to the track "Fire and Ice", which was renamed "Let The Music Play." She auditioned for the song and thanked the duo for their interest. In October 1983 the single was released without her knowledge. Shannon was invited back to lay out more songs for Liggett and Barbosa. Barbosa, a Puerto Rican from New York was considered the founder of Freestyle music. "Let The Music Play" is well known as the first freestyle track, with a heavy syncopated drum sound with Latin American rhythms that wasn't so electro as the sound the year prior. The single's success led to the number eight position on the Billboard Hot 100 and took over the dance charts. Today the song is well-regarded as both a pop classic and one of the most influential dance records of all time. Her follow up single in 1984 was "Give Me Tonight," a record that charted poorly by comparison on the Hot 100, but received the same wild enthusiam in the clubs as its predecessor and also hit the top spot on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. That same year she released her debut album Let The Music Play. It was considered the first Freestyle album in history, and featured another club hit with "My Heart's Divided." Shannon appeared on many television shows such as Soul Train, Solid Gold, Video Soul, among others. In 1985 Shannon released her sophomore album Do You Wanna Get Away, with a sound similar to her previous album. The title track was her final Hot 100 single and, in typical fashion, a club chart-topper. It was also her last Freestyle record of the decade. She scored three more Dance music hits but by 1986 her third album, Love Goes All The Way, did not bring the same success as previous efforts - although her records received heavy airplay on Hot 97 in New York. She opted out of her recording contract in 1987 and returned to college to pursue her degree in Theatre Arts.
In the late 1990s interest was rekindled in Shannon, partly due to VH1's spotlight on her for their One Hit Wonders series. In 1998 she sang on the track Take a Little Time by Les Rythmes Digitales. In 2000 Shannon released her fourth studio album, The Best Is Yet To Come, her first album in fifteen years. Chris Barbosa was invited back as a producer and updated her 1980s hits with a similar sound. Many notable producers, including Andy Panda and Tony Moran were featured on the new album. An updated "Give Me Tonight" from the set made the song a colossal club hit again when released as a single (while its follow-up, an update of "Let The Music Play," though still a hit, interestingly proved to be less popular - a role reversal of when she debuted with the songs in the 80's).
Shannon returned to the theatre business in 2003 and released a Greatest Hits album in November of 2004.
On April 20, 2006 Shannon participated in the Freestyle Extranvaganza concert along with fellow Freestyle acts like Judy Torres (often referred to as the Queen of Freestyle), George Lamond, Cynthia, Lisette Melendez, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, the Cover Girls, Hanson and Davis, Coro, Stevie B. and more. The event was sponsored by WKTU, WSKQ, and WCAA in New York.
