A LOS Angeles producer has released a charity album in honour of his father’s band, consisting on unreleased music performed at the Cliffs Pavilion in the Eighties.

Marc Sallis, grew up in Southend, but now works in the states as a producer.

His dad, Steve was a member of the band Freeway, who toured the UK with their country performances.

Steve, as well as Mick Hawes, 66, are the only surviving members of the band, who had huge success in the Eighties.

But Marc received the sad news that Mick is battling terminal lung cancer, and has embarked on a mission to create a legacy.

He has produced Country Connections, Vol 1 (at the Maritime Rooms at the Cliffs Pavilion), from unreleased tracks he dug out of the band all recorded in Southend.

Marc said: “Growing up in Essex in the 1980s some of my oldest and fondest memories were of my dad, Steve Sallis, and his best friend, Mick Hawes, playing in a country band called Freeway.

"They were a stalwart on the burgeoning UK country music scene at the time and appeared on BBC Radio, and played across the land, including shows at a number of local American Air Force bases where they discovered the taste of Jack Daniel’s and and real US barbecue food.

"A week ago I received some very upsetting news that the band’s leader, and my dad’s best friend, Mick Hawes, who lives in Crays Hill, has a very aggressive and incurable form of lung cancer and only has weeks to live.

"I tried to think what I could do to put a smile on his face ad I remembered my Dad had some recordings of the band.”

The album, raising money for the British Heart Foundation, is available at https://apple.co/2JTSLVt