YOU BETTER "WASH" OUT!

The Great Pretender

Someone call Martha Wash! Zelma Davis, dance music's most notorious impersonator, has apparently struck again! Most know Davis as the svelte model who was sued by Wash for lip-synching to Wash's vocals on the C+C Music Factory hit 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).'

Davis' culprit this time is Sylver Logan Sharp, lead vocalist for the disco group Chic. Sharp had been riding high off her solo dance single 'All This Time,' which was recently No. 1 on Billboard's dance singles chart and on the WKTU radio station in New York City. Then after returning from some dates in Gstaad, Switzerland, the singer began receiving horrible feedback from fans regarding her live shows.

"I started receiving calls and e-mails from irate fans complaining about shows I never performed," Sharp told us. "Then a local club owner saw me advertised online for a gig the very night he'd hired me to perform."

Sharp and her team started to investigate the issue and discovered one evening, only an hour before she was scheduled to perform at Club Shelter in New York City, that the other "Sylver" was booked to perform in Newark, N.J., at the XL Lounge. They went to the venue and after Davis performed to a prerecorded version of 'All This Time,' Sharp's assistant Angela Kennedy approached her.

"I introduced myself, and she identified herself as Sylver," recalled Kennedy. "I then motioned for the real Sylver to come over. I said, 'May I introduce you to Sylver Logan Sharp, the artist you're impersonating tonight?' Her jaw dropped and then came the denial, denial, denial."

Davis attempted to explain. "No, I said the group is Sylver," she lied, before being reminded that she was the only one on stage. Davis then went on to say that she was lip-synching to her own version of the song, but according to Sharp, the version heard that night was clearly Sharp's vocals.

Since confronting Davis, Sharp and her team are in the process of taking legal action. "We've discovered information online about numerous venues where she has misrepresented herself and used booking agents to make money, defraud club owners and bill herself as Sylver or Silver," explained Sharp.

If you want to make sure you're dealing with the real Sylver Logan Sharp, visit her Web site at www.sylverwear.com for images and contact information.

In other Chic news, band founder Nile Rodgers won a lawsuit he issued against three ex-members of the group. Rodgers alleged the Chic name was being used without his permission by Alfa Anderson, Norma Jean Wright and Luci Martin, vocalists for Chic from 1977 to 1982. A Manhattan federal judge awarded him $250,000 in trademark damages.