ExpatMichael's opinion of anything relating to disco, Italo disco, funk and boogie music. Promotion for my Ebay and Discogs stores which concentrate on the sale of Disco, Funk, Italo Disco, Hi NRG, New Wave, morning music, sleaze and anything pressed on vinyl. There's a link to my Ebay store on the bottom of the page, right under the counter widget. Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave comments. Follow my twitter and join the Disco Vinyl Fan Page on Facebook.
This blog post has not only been refreshed but I was able to add a more recent remake of it. This original post was from when I first started my blog in 2008.
In my five years selling on Ebay this obscure disco funk jam has been my very best showing. With a final sales price of just under $700.00 it certainly made my day and paid a few bills. If only it had been Near Mint I would have done even better. I've actually seen a copy go for over $1,200! Since then it has shown up both in re-issue and bootleg so I'd imagine bidders are much more cautious about bidding high on this one. Family Tree
google.com, pub-9672253206618216, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 Family Tree by Family Tree was written and sung by Sharon Brown and released in 1976 on Anada records. She of course five years later had a disco smash with I Specialize in Love. Her other releases failed to create a murmur. But Family Tree with its soulful flutes and deep gospel tinged vocals will remain legendary. Apparently it was a major crowd pleaser on Larry Levan's dance-floor atThe Paradise Garage.I specialize in love
Claudja Barry was one of the few artists who had a very successful transition from the disco era right up into the 80's. Born in Jamaica her family moved to Canada wen she was 7 and she was raised in Toronto. Her first release in 1975 Reggae Bump didn't make much of a stir. But the next year and signing to Salsoul brought out the classics Sweet Dynamite and Love for the sake of Love.
These Tom Moulton mixes are about as classic disco as classic disco goes.
In this post I've chose to give her a retrospective. Her most well known disco classic is from 1978, Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes. Another production by Jurgen S. Korduletsch, dancin' shoes really had that Euro sound that had burst wide open a few years before with Donna Summer's I Feel Love. Korduletsch her one time producer and husband had his hands on most of her releases.
1982's Work Me Over bridged the next gap from Euro to out and out High Energy. And what would you expect with the production being trusted to the legendary Bobby O? She was also the vocalist on one of his album cuts Whisper to a Scream.
The clubs I was going to in Washington, D.C. pumped Work me Over in a big way, in 1982 and 1983. I remember dancing to it fondly. It left it's mark. The B side a Hi Energy version of the 60's hit I Will Follow Him also got play but not nearly as much.
I CLAUDIA LP Down and Counting in 1986 marked the first time she made it to #1 on the dance charts. It was also part of her short lived period on a major, Epic. Unfortunately she had no more big hits with them. But she did come back with a Top 10 in 1991 on Radikal Records No La Di Da.
She's had 9 full length albums spanning the years 1976 to 2015, just under 40 years of dance music delights.
Lama's 1983 italo disco HI NRG classic Love is on the Rocks is a cover version of Lucio Battisti's Il Veliero from 1976. LAMA FOR YOU LAMA ZIPSINGLE MIXES
It's a Saint classic and a highly coveted twelve inch. In my zip I am providing you with the original, the Disconet remix and the Rhythm Stick remix. For fun I've thrown in a 2008 version that came out on Almighty Records by Belle Lawrence. They did a pretty good job of updating the sound but stillkeeping it the same song.
Belle Lawrence has done many covers. Including Shakira's Wherever, Whenver and The Flirts Passion.
There is also this 2008 remix out there. I've never heard it.
He was most popular during the seventies when politically conscious music was big in Italy. Hell the commies were about to take over when Aldo Moro was kidnapped and later killed by the "brigada rosso." Not the best move since this Christian Democrat politician was doing a lot to comprise with the Italian Communists, but hey this isn't a political blog now is it?
He died of cancer in 1998 and compilations of his career's work have been selling like hot cakes in Italy and around Europe ever since.
The first place I heard this was at The Loft. It blew me away. It sounded so cool and it gave such a refreshing break to the evening.
Certain songs have become Morning Music classics. It's hard to know why. A few years ago I did a big run-down listing many of them and some opinions about the difference between sleaze and morning music. But the links are mostly dead and I don't have the patience to compile them all again.
But I will give you this one in a zip. It even includes a more recent edit, and the original from 1976. I think you'll agree that this is a special record. HOW ETHEREAL IS IT?
We've had Andrea True posts before but this one includes some tasty edits.
Andrea Marie Truden has two particular distinctions to me as a disco diva. First of all she transitioned from adult film star (14 films between 1970 and 1975) to vocalist and she sang my all time favorite disco song More, More, More (pk. #4 U.S. #5 U.K. #1 Canada). She like me was Catholic school educated. I think this accomplishment sort of documents how much more progressive the disco era was then what we are living now. Can you even imagine an adult film star transitioning to pop star in 2014?
Andrea also had some major luck with having at least two major disco luminaries on her side. Both Gregg Diamond and Tom Moulton were instrumental in bringing the Andrea True Connection sound to the dance floors.
N.Y. You got me Dancing was her only other entry on the pop charts peaking at #27 in 1977, though she did have more success on the Billboard Disco Charts.
During her heyday as a porn actress, around 1975, True was hired by a real estate business in Jamaica to appear in their commercials. During her stay in Jamaica, a political crisis gripped the island, and no one was allowed to leave with any money. Not wanting to lose the pay she had earned from the real estate ads, True asked her friend, record producer Gregg Diamond, to travel to the island and produce a track for her, which she would finance locally using that money. Diamond arrived with a composition in hand, to which True added her vocals. The result of their collaboration was "More, More, More." (thank you wikipedia for that juicy tidbit.)
Four major disco hits on the disco charts and even one, More, More, More which shot all the way up to #4 on the pop charts and went platinum. Andrea's chart success only happened over a two year period. So by 1979 she was back to making adult films. Sort of sad when you think of it but Buddah cancelled her contract after they had earned millions off of her. The follow-up album White Witch failed to cause a spark and remains somewhat obscure. Her 1980 album War Machine was released in Europe only. Believe it or not it was a hard rock album.
Her stage names included Inger Kissin, Singe Low, Sandra Lips, Andrea Travis, and Catherine Warren.
Born in Nashville it sure was to our fortune that she didn't pursue a career in country and western. In 1999 the Canadian group Len sampled the instrumental break from "More, More, More" in their own hit single, "Steal My Sunshine". Around 2000 she was living in Boynton Beach, Florida working as a psychic reader as well as a counselor for drug and substance abusers.
When Andrea True left the stage in 2011, on November 7 she was 58. She had since moved to Woodstock New York. I've seen her in a couple disco related documentaries. You can also find her in a few mainstream films, including the documentary Inside Deep Throat. She was even an extra in The Way We Were. ANDREA'S IMDB PAGE In later years she really seemed to have let herself go. But when you are this much of a beauty in your youth it must be quite a battle to retain your looks.
Whispering in his ear
my magic potion for love
telling him I'm sincere
and that there's
nothing too good for us
and I just got to be free
Whispering in his ear
my magic potion for love
telling him I'm sincere
and that there's
nothing too good for us
but I want to be free
free free
and I just to be me
me me
Teasing hands on his mind
gives life such mystery
happiness all the time
oh and how that just pleases me
but I want to be free
free free
and I just got to be me
me
Feeling you close to me
makes all my senses smile
lets not waste ecstasy
because I'll only be here for a while
I got to be free
free free
and I just got to be me
me me
Free Free
and I just wannna
I just wanna be me
FREE FREE
This song gives me goosebumps. In DJ circles it's what's called SLEAZE or MORNING MUSIC. Deniece went on to a fair amount of commercial success but I will always remember her for this 1976 power ballad. I'VE GOT THE NEXT DANCE MAXI SINGLE IN MY EBAY STORE
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From the time they were introduced to us in 1976 on the hugely successful Car Wash soundtrack Rose Royce were a force to be reckoned with. Just the fact that such great music came out of a flop film is a case in point.
They were deeply talented musicians and those Gwen Dickey vocals were nothing short of amazing. Her voice became an iconic part of the late seventies and into the early eighties.
There were really so many songs I could have chosen for this blog post. But I chose Still in Love because it's one of the best boogie tracks from 1982 and yet made no dent on the pop charts so Rose Royce is in no way remembered for this track in particular. It's a sizzler all the way through. Clinging to all the best elements of disco yet funkin' out in an early 80's way. Rose Royce was a band often able to refresh their sound but rarely able to take it up high on the charts. Though certainly they did a bit better on the R&B charts and ironically for an L.A. based band they found some decent success on the U.K. charts. In any case they were responsible for one of the definitive songs of the disco era with CarWash. There is no mistaking that hand clap intro. that shot it straight up to number 1 in the U.S. and Canada and Top 5 in several others. Their songs were later covered by artists as prominent as Mary J. Blige and Madonna.
As an example of how huge Rose Royce were in the U.K. their greatest hits album released in 1980 actually made it to number 1, while in the States it didn't even chart. 1980 was of course the year that the word disco went out of style and suddenly anything with the label got the kiss of death. In Europe they were not quite as cruel to the genre and disco or what many called boogie still had a couple good years.
Christina Aguilera also re-made Car Wash but let's not go there.
Barbara Tamiko Ferguson was born in Kyle, West Virginia in 1945. She started recording in the mid sixties. By the late 70's she had a few floor stompers of disco dance.
1976's Let if Flow was a major release for T.K. but in 1979 Polydor's Can't Live Without Your Love was the one that made her disco legendary. It's a real Loft classic. It always sounds great to me. CAN'T LIVE Her release from 1975 I'm Spell Bound is much less known but well worth checking out I'm Spell Bound
Her 1986 remake of Marvin Gaye's classic I Want You was also known as Tamiko's Groove. It was mixed by Timmy Regisford & Merlin Bobb and it's just about the last I've heard from her. Tamiko's Groove
It was 1976 and I had just transferred to a new school, a more urban hip school. Probably too urban for me and my up to then provincial nature, I lasted only a few months before transferring to Catholic school. But I remember one thing. In that middle school there was a student paper. In the paper there was a page where you could vote for your favorite song. The competition was between two songs Walk This Way by Aerosmith and Hot Line by The Sylvers.
The Sylvers started out in Memphis, TN. before moving to Harlem. A lot of their earlier stuff is quite collectible. I know they provided me with a lot of joy in the 70's. The 80's were not so kind to them but some of the members went on to producing other acts and were very successful at that.
Not my typical post. My 12" cover was the same as this other release by the same artist. I sold mine years ago on ebay. It's Brazilian bossanova disco and it's hot.
This blog post has not only been refreshed but I was able to add a more recent remake of it. This original post was from when I first started my blog in 2008.
