Bevin Fagan was most well known as the lead singer and producer of one of the UK's biggest reggae acts, Matumbi. Yet in his time he was involved with and influenced by all sorts of music that was going on in South London during the seventies and early eighties, even being part of a prog rock band named 'Stonehenge' even at one point in his youth.

Guardian Angel was a roots reggae project with his wife (or maybe sister) Sylvia Fagan on vocals. They put out a few lovers rock type singles, but if you flip the accompanying album over, the B side is mostly (and oddly) unique sounding funk and disco tracks, of which 'Last Funk' is the most left of center and hard hitting of all.

Through some miracle over the years I have managed to come across two copies of this LP from British reggae collectors who don't rate it as Fagan's best work and are turned off by the funk on the flip. One man's trash as they say. If you want my double hit me up.

Guardian Angel - Last Funk

Touche was one of the many projects of the Bronx's own Dennis Bell, then a much respected producer and keyboard session musician and now a significant figure in music education on the east coast, especially in the field of jazz piano. He was the studio wizard on a few early hip hop records, working with Doug E Fresh etc, but Wrap It Up and Just Like A Doorknob are probably his biggest solo dancefloor hits.

Wrap It Up has been posted far and wide before, and the vocoded vocals are excellent, but I never saw the instrumental floating around anywhere..so..here it is..

Touche - Wrap It Up (Vocal)

Touche - Wrap It Up (Instrumental)

Here is a great one-off jam from Cookie, who as far as I know only came together to make one 12" on Le Jazz records in 1982. Danny Weiss co-produced the track and also produced for The Players Association. This jam departs from disco and finds him in heavy boogie funk mode.


Cookie - Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover
Cookie - Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover (instrumental)