Like so many people, my first Betty Wright record I bought was Clean Up Woman, the same year I started DJing in 1971. It's hard to imagine now how few TV channels we had to choose from back then, but just flicking the channels by chance, I just happened to catch the 2nd half of this same performance of Betty Wright on the Mike Douglas show:
Read MoreBohannon
Bohannon @ The Beacon...
In the early 70's the Beacon Theater on Broadway sometimes had these incredible star studded shows. In 1975 I remember one very well featuring The Stylistics, Mandrill, Betty Wright... & Bohannon.
Cecilia
In 1969 at the age of twelve, I was already record collecting, even thinking a few crates of records was a lot, never dreaming 50 years later I'd have 80,000+. This was pre disco, house, hip-hop, we didn't even call it dance music, what we called it was rock n soul, as that's what it mostly was. It's easy to say I preferred soul, that's what stuck as my base... but I was always open to a lot more... even pop.
Read MoreTouch & Go
Touch & Go:
Ecstasy, Passion & Pain had a number of hits in the 70's on Roulette records, "Touch & Go" arguably their best. By the 80's, surviving Disco Sucks as a beloved classic, I still couldn't get enough of it, so I made my own extended edit. Around the same time, Roulette records was acquired by Sunnyview records, where my friend Claudia Cuseta was in charge of Club Promotion. Claudia surprised me one day saying she had the master tapes of "Touch & Go" & said she wanted me & Tony Smith to remix it. This is about 1985, & I had only done a few less memorable low budget remixes, so I was looking forward to this.
Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
James Brown... I did have a lot of key music influences growing up, but maybe none bigger than... JAMES BROWN. In the late 60's & early 70's, whenever I went to a house party, (a party at someone’s house) they didn't have a DJ, they just had someone in charge of the music. Usually that was one automatic turntable with a tall spindle that you could stack 4 or 5 albums at once, no singles, just long playing albums. Typically, most albums had only one or two popular songs & the rest... party killers. So most albums you would hear were greatest hits or variety hit's, like Motown 64 greatest hits & Sly & The Family Stone's greatest hits. But the better party's for me seem to use a lot of James Brown, which really made people dance non stop.
Read More