He persuaded them to change their name to 24-Carat Black, and wrote and produced their only original recording, the late 1973 concept album Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth.
The band's line-up was Larry Austin (bass); Tyrone Steels (percussion); Jerome Derrickson (saxophone); Ricky Foster (trumpet); James Talbert (electric piano); William Talbert (organ); and Princess Hearn, Kathleen Dent, and Valerie Malone (vocals).
Today it stands the test of time as a deep and musically astounding meditation on the black experience in the Seventies.
By the time of those recordings, group members included vocalists Robert Dunson, Niambi Steele (Still), and Hedda Sudduth, keyboardists Bruce Thompson and Tommy Edwards, saxophonists Henry Williams and Shakir Suleiman, guitarist Rayford Smith, and bassist John Walls, as well as Princess Hearn, Jerome Derrickson, Tyrone Steels, Ricky Foster and Miss Patrice.
[5] Recordings which Warren had made with 24-Carat Black in 1973–1974, largely comprising orchestrated versions of love songs he had reportedly written in the mid-1960s, were stored by keyboardist and engineer Bruce Thompson, and were released on CD in 2009 under the title Gone: The Promises of Yesterday.