Cherrelle, a Detroit R&B singer had a huge string of hits throughout the 80's and 90's. This tune is a great blend of soul, pop and electro, a few years before it became the sound of the late 80's. This tune was covered by Robert Palmer in 1985 and Mariah Carey in 2001.

mp3: Cherrelle - I Didn't Mean To Turn You On

So I just got back from a short weekend trip to New York, it wasn't all fun and games, there was a lot of carrying boxes and ferrying things about involved, but happily by coincidence as much as design my visit happened to fall on the weekend of CMJ. I saw one show (friends of friends Tiger City alongside Walter Meego) then blew the rest of it off to go record shopping in the little spare time that I had. Whilst my companion was shopping for organic jeans in a next door boutique I stopped in at A1 records (439 E 6TH St), I had the best luck here over the handful of other stores I stopped in during the course of the afternoon. They carry a lot of heat, records being sorted by genre then by label and vinyl condition being taken heavily into account in pricing which I like.


My two favorite scores there were a perfect copy of Tantra's 'Hills Of Katmandu' for $10, and an ok first issue copy of Gwen Guthrie's Padlock lp for $6.

Padlock is sort of a dream, 'mutant' disco super group album. Vocals are performed by ex Aretha Franklin backup singer Gwen Guthrie, production is by dub legends Sly and Robbie and Larry Levan is on the mixing boards. The influences of all parties involved are equally felt, soul, psychedelic dubbed out wizardry and hard disco club rhythms. Here are a couple of my favorite tracks from the record:

HopScotch (Larry Levan Instrumental Mix).mp3
Seventh Heaven.mp3

B.T. Express was an important funk disco group that had a few hits in the 70's. Their biggest single was Do It (Till You're Satisfied) which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. Their sound throughout the 70's threw a deep and groovy vibe. In 1980 they created an album that reflected a new era. They were on a quest to bring the world the future of boogie. That album was 1980 and it featured a jacket with the B.T Express spaceship on the front. The grooves are very polished and upbeat. The album is also loaded with tight production, synthesizers, and spacey electronic sounds. Their single from the album was Give Up The Funk (Let's Dance), but it doesn't really reflect the direction they were taking as much as the track Takin' Off. My apologies that this was ripped from a well loved copy of the album.

mp3: B.T. Express- Takin' Off

As far as I know Jimmy Ross only cut one LP in 1981 and put out a few 12 inches with the aid of Italian superproducers Stefano Pulga and Luciano Ninzatti (Kano). Very little else is known about the man except that he passed into soul heaven in the year 2000 and he most certainly made a couple of the heaviest early 80's disco cuts ever released.


mp3: "Fall into a Trance"

mp3: "First True Love Affair"

At my work I am constantly tortured with break-beat acoustic music, and have to run to my office to cleanse myself. I often times use this beautiful track to put myself into a good mood. Mr. Flagio is a group from Italy that produced a couple of incredible italo tracks in the 80's. They had an amazing modern sound that sounds fresh to this day.

mp3: Mr. Flagio: Take a Chance

I'm not from San Francisco, I'm from Sheringham in North Norfolk, England. Several cultural centres are located near the Victorian era seaside town of Sheringham, these include Norwich (the epicentre of the region), Kings Lynn and North Walsham.

A common preconception that I hear when talking to other dance music historians and urban culture historians that I encounter on my travels throughout the world is that no disco, rare groove, electro soul or boogie of any note whatsoever ever came out Norwich and its surrounding areas. Sadly, after much time and study of the subject it would appear they were right. Norwich was more of a post punk art school town in those days, a genre in which it punched slightly above it's weight (lightweight), but I still ask around and look through the local record bins when I'am back, in hopes that I will find something by Norfolk's one forgotten underground electro disco act that disbanded unheralded in 1983, leaving it's members disolusioned and heading back to the pig farms or mustard factory never to speak of their failed efforts again.
(a singing farmer from where I grew up)

Yet, where Norwich was lagging other parts of the United Kingdom had plenty to offer.

Britain has always done a lot with black American music, boogie was no exception and the 12" electronic soul and disco singles that came out of early eighties London fetch fair whack now, probably due to the low number of pressings as compared to their US counterparts and subsequent relative rarity, plus they are mostly good.

Ease Your Mind by Touch Down was produced by a guy called Nigel Wright who went on to become world famous for his sound and scoring work for west end and broad way musicals, I think he did sound production for phantom of the opera with Sir Andrew Loyd Webber, and the song was written by another guy from Bedforshire (not far from Norfolk but almost as rural if that counts), called Steve Vincent, who went on to have hits well into the ninties as a sort of hip house act called 'The Adventures Of Stevie V.' . This can be a pricey record on the used market, and like most Brit Funk records as popular with the acid jazz set as the electro collectors:

Touchdown - Ease My Mind

Barbara Mason is another 60's soul diva that continued to put out great albums through the 70's. Yes, I'm Ready was her break out hit in 1965. Her soul tracks are incredible, including Don't I Ever Cross Your Mind. Let Me Give You Love is a track from 1981 that shows some great soul, disco, and cutesier italo elements. It is a happy soul tune with a mellow delivery. It has some horns up front that sound like they could be borrowed from Madness, coupled with a playful cowbell, funky bass line, and fuzzy bass synth line. The strings and Barbara's sweet voice meet to bring the track a smooth late light party vibe.

AAC: Let Me Give You Love

This isn't going to be a long post as I'm a little cut up and this was never meant to be a livejournal styled teenage blog of emotional outpouring, it was supposed to be about free mp3's of old and rare underground dance records. Well I think Hot Summer Nights by Love Club is getting rarer by the minute as my copy is smashed right through the middle and now will be retired to Levan's record crate in the sky where all good boogie records go when they die.

Here is an mp3, it doesn't come in a west end records sleeve but then its not shattered into pieces either so its better than nothing. If you see this come up on eBay over the next few weeks, do me a favor, lay off, I'm broken hearted and need this back in my bag.

Aaargh...

Hot Summer Nights - Love Club

I usually don't enjoy spoken dialogue in dance tracks, it is almost without question an unnecessary addition to any vocal line, especially in the case of disco where the monologue usually consists of some diva complaining about how some man has done her wrong. If I were to edit a track this section of any intro would be the first to get the chop..except in the instance of Class Action's Weekend, in which case everything else would go and I would just repeat the spoken word bit over and over because its ace.

"Well well well, look who's home. I didn't think you were going to make it tonight my man.." and so on it goes.

Minimal boogie synth disco hybrid with the best soul sister vocal in the history of the genre. With Larry Levan on the mixing boards it achieved No.9 position on the Billboard Club Play Singles chart in 1983. Pure heat.

Class Action - Weekend

The Invisible Man's Band may be hard to see, but they bring on the funk all night long! They were born from the Chicago soul scene as a teen group known as The (Five) Stairsteps. The key track from them is O-o-Child. The Invisible Man's Band put out two albums and this track is from the first. I like how it actually sounds like there is a party going on in the studio. There are lots of fun post production trinkets in there as well, but it is the stomp that makes this track really fun.

AAC: All Night Thing

West End is my favorite old school New York dance record label, and its output in the post disco era, that being arguably the early nineteen eighties onward, is my favorite material from the label. Sparque's 'Take Some Time' is my favorite track from that period of West End, so maybe therefor by that logic it's my favorite ever dance track.

Sparque's 'Take Some Time' comes from a time when disco was in deep mainstream decline, the shunning of disco by popular radio in effect gave it back to the underground, beaten, sick and in terrible shape. With the spotlight turned away the genre was given a chance to breathe, convalescing in the wharehouses and clubs of a few of the world's big cities. Evolving with newly injected creativity spawned from limited resources and ever cheaper technology, eventually to re-emerge with a new face and several new names, boogie, electro, house etc
. 'Take Some Time' is straight out of that transition, its still has the traditional elements and live instrumentation of disco, a very minimal but soulful vocal, some of the stripped down groove of boogie and the synthy punch that would mark the rest of the decade. Its great to mix, has a slow to mid tempo and it gratifyingly hookey with the disco bell curve sine wave 'booo' sound all over a mix that typifies the idiom "less is more", the arrangement and build up also utilize every lesson learned at the what was then the tail end of the first generation of disco producer's decade long journey.

Sparque was the project of producer Larry Joseph, a prolific but mysteriously uncelebrated figure who created some of the best works on West End under his Sparque moniker, all tastefully energy filled dance floor movers, and who made a very natural progression into Electro and hip hop as the decade wore on (one of which I know Larry himself raps on), eventually even releasing a couple of house records as the nineties loomed. What happened to him, what he looked like, what his deal was at the time, I have no idea whatsoever and the fact he is so undocumented is a shame as his creative contribution to that important formative era of modern dance music is as important (to my mind at least) as many of the other much hailed production giants of the genre.

Sparque - Take Some Time

Now this track has surfaced in the past couple of years as the main sample in Ray Mang's Tells Bells and as a much acclaimed Idjut Boys redit, which I honestly haven't heard and I'm sure its good, but to be honest I think the rare as you like original 12" dance edit is near perfect as it is. There is a 3 minute version on Tantra's 'The Double Album' LP but the extended dance version turns up three times, as a B side to the 'Macumba' 12" on DDD and Philips in 1982 and on the excellent Disconet vol. 5 prog. 1 from that same year, which is what I have. I like the Disconet pressings and I took this recording from a well looked after copy, enjoy:

Tantra - A Place Called Tarot (Original 1982 Dance edit)

Donald Byrd is a living legend and a total innovator. Jazz purists love to cry foul of the moves he made in his career, but I prefer to call him a purveyor of genuine musical progress. After a long career steeped heavily in the Bluenote jazz/bop scene, the 70's rolled in and the landscape of jazz completely changed. Instead of calling it a day and staying the musical course, he hooked up with the influential production duo the Mizell Brothers. Together they laid down a series of groundbreaking jazz/disco fusion lp's. The Mizell production aesthetic was filled with soaring disco strings, jazzy horn lines and heavy funk backbeats.

By the time the 80's creeped around, Donald (now well into his 50's) produced two boogie records with the aid of soul godfather Isaac Hayes. The albums they produced with his new band, 125th Street NYC, drip with the flavor of modern soul heat. "Love Has Come Around" in particular is an all time favorite.

Donald Byrd - Dominoes
Donald Byrd - Love Has Come Around

Long ago, before Ray Parker Jr. met the Ghostbusters, he was in Detroit making some incredible disco funk and writing hit songs for many 70's groups. This track has such an incredible stomp and perfectly executed vocal that it is hard to imagine that it wasn't one of his hits. It is more apparent on the hit from the LP (For Those Who Like To Groove) that the album got some help on the keys from funkmaster Herbie Hancock.

AAC: It's Time to Party Now

Skyy was one of the great disco/funk/boogie collectives from the early 80's. The 8 piece band formed in 1978 and was quickly signed to the white hot NYC imprint Salsoul Records. The band was founded by Randy Muller who was also a member of Brass Construction, and did some arrangements for seminal funky disco act B.T. Express. Take note of their album cover art as well. They had a super hot disco space going that you could only get away with in that era.

"Here's to You" has a near perfect vocal arrangement courtesy of the trio of Denise, Delores, and Bonny Dunning. The 12 inch has become increasingly sought after and costs a pretty penny these days.

"Call Me" was released in 1981 and broke the band as well as being the biggest hit of Skyy's career. It ended up not only on the billboard disco charts, but also topped the pop charts,

Skyy- "Here's to You"
Skyy "Call Me"

Mass Production are my favorite of a breed of 70's also ran funk acts that hung on into the 80's and made the sonic transition into the electro funk, boogie era. A lot of these bands, whose roots stemmed from classical jazz training and standard funk drum kit, guitar, big percussive rhythm section combos didn't take to the new studio driven synth aesthetic and methodology with much success. Imagine being part of a gigging funk 6 piece, having been on the road for the best part of a decade, the eighties come in and suddenly all the club r'n'b chart/dance music top spots are being taken by a couple of faceless guys and a drum machine. Realizing that you needed some studio time with a roland juno and the accompanying manual must have been exciting and daunting, although maybe it wasn't like that at all, maybe all these old well established deep funk acts evolved into electro funk boogie studio production outfits naturally as the new sounds, technology and instruments permeated black musical culture. I doubt it though.

Mass Production were a jazz-funk group that formed in a high school in Norfolk, Virginia. They eventually moved the act to New York and produced some good disco-funk records such as 1979's 'Firecracker' that are reasonably sought after, and the one or two instrumental tracks they had on each album always seemed to chart, although I don't listen to any of that stuff, Mass Production for me came alive as soon as 1980 came around. Albums like 'Masterpiece' and 'In A City Groove' are full of overlooked quality boogie numbers, consistently so, although light on standout classics. In 1983 shortly before disbanding they released the album '1983', and in order to prove that time had not passed them by they included electro funk tunes with contemporary hip-hop influence, and even a vocoded reggae funk hybrid. This is also one of my favorite album covers of the era, full of color and humorous cartoon futurism, little Japanese graffiti looking robots on the funk production line. Here is a slow electro instrumental groover from said album called "Victory '83", listen to how it all melded together shortly before they disappeared into history..

Mass Production - Victory '83

-Black Shag

Who the hell is the Joel Diamond Exprience? Joel Diamond was apparently a huge hit writer for the Supremes and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap before discovering his funky side. Somewhere in there he produced this little gem that seems counter to his career as a music industry executive. The subject matter seems a little racy. This track shows a lot of elements that seem to run through late 70's disco. There is a non-cohesiveness apparent, but it doesn't necessarily make the music bad or disjointed. It actually sounds like there are a couple different ideas pasted together that any modern music producer would turn into individual tracks. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was too much freedom of expression. Whatever the case, it is fun and ridiculous at the same time. The main vocal sings the innuendo laden lyrics with the subtlety of a Peking opera singer; and the annoying harmonica making sex noises(?) breaks to a wonderful chorus that is smooth and groovy.

AAC: Joel Diamond Experience- Music Machine

This is one of those epic disco tracks that goes on forever and continues to bring on the funk and soul. It opens with authority and lands into this slutty groove that's totally unexpected. The infectious popping bassline mates with disco lazer toms and Jackson Five-esque breakdowns for a dance floor killer. For those track switching DJs, there is a great breakdown at 4:30 (that goes on for nearly three and a half minutes) that will allow you to drop another track and skip the bass solo, followed by a vocal solo, followed by a piano solo followed by....you get the idea. This track by LOVE DE-LUXE with Hawkshaw's Discophonia is both a mouth and an ear full, the original track seemed to go on forever at 16:52 long. Here we have the Jim Burgess mix that that clocks 8:50. This track was dropped in 1979 and stayed at the number one spot for a week in the hot dance/music club play chart in 1979.

AAC - "Here Comes That Sound Again"

Weeks & Co was the brainchild of Richard Weeks (also of The Jammers), and the sound has a proto boogie, heavy synth feel, they produced one LP and their limited work spans the early to mid eighties. Tracks such as 'Rock Your World' can be found on early WBMX playlists and on the recordings of early house sets from the Warehouse in Chicago, but the track I'm putting up for you is 'Knock Knock'. This came as an album version with the powerful soul vocal stabs midway through the track and also as a bonus Shep Pettibone remix, which is essentially an instrumental (of what was already a very instrumental track) with the drums brought out in the mix. I'm going to do a separate piece on the post-disco boogie and electro production work of Shep Pettibone later on when I have collected together and recorded enough of my favorites..

Weeks & Co - Knock knock (album vocal version)
Weeks & Co - knock Knock (Shep Pettibone remix)

Rene & Angela burst onto the scene in with their self titled debut in 1980. The follow up, 1981's Wall to Wall was a killer entry into the the growing boogie sound. produced by Bobby Watson (of Rufus fame) Rene Moore and Angela Winbrush helped usher in a new era of modern soul groove. The standout track, "I Love you More" is all funky gliding piano, heavy synth bass courtesy of the Moog Liberation keytar, and soaring disco strings. "Secret Rendevous" coasts on a soulful vocal courtesy of Angela. Feel it!

mp3: Rene & Angela "I Love You More"
mp3: Rene & Angela "Secret Rendezvous"

-BT Magnum