Clout's Cindy Alter is back!

Clout's Cindy Alter is back!

Cindy Alter, lead singer of the wildly popular South African 70s band Clout, chats to Gordon Graham on East Coast Gold about her new single; her journey since the days of 'Substitute' and 'Save Me'; her health issues and her successful time in the USA.

Clout's Cindy Alter is back
Just Music

There are some conversation stoppers that leave a room full of people with their jaws wide open. “I have sold 12 million albums, had a number one hit in 10 countries globally and a number 2 hit in England.”

The general response to this statement is “Who the hell are you?”

We are talking about Cindy Alter, the Johannesburg-born musician, best known as front woman of the 70’s mega-successful band Clout, who dominated the world charts with their hit ‘Substitute’ in 1978.

Gordon Graham caught up with Cindy, following the recent release of her new single, ‘’Hole in a Ring’’.

Listen to the podcast below.

Watch the 1978 video for Substitute below.

Watch the video for Clout's Save Me...

The background about ‘’Hole in a Ring’’

When Cindy Alter recently featured as a guest vocalist on a recording session at Just Music for legendary country artist Lance James’ track ‘’Tower of Song’ for his Swansong album, Just Music’s A&R and production team were taken aback by Cindy’s emotive vocal delivery.

It was evident that Cindy was aching to get back into the recording studio. After a series of demo recordings and a wider search for a song that would hopefully get Cindy back on top, a songwriter’s demo of “Hole in A Ring’’ was presented to Just Music - and they loved it.

Cindy Alter was brought in to hear the song demo. She fell in love with it too, and plans were put in place to secure the exclusive song rights and get Cindy in studio to record ‘’Hole in a Ring’’.


‘’Hole in a Ring’’ is undoubtedly Cindy Alter back at her very best. Soulful, earthy and rapturous in her treatment of the song, captured in a really fine country-rock production by record producer Matthew Fink and executive producers Benjy Mudie and Charles Kühn.

Did you know ECR's sister station East Coast Gold plays music from the 60s, 70s and 80s! Listen via the ECR app or here.

Show's Stories