Just after midnight, I stumbled onto this track, and it was the perfect middle-of-the-night anthem. From Soiree's 1979 self-titled album, today's joint is an uplifting cover of You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.
Soiree were a disco studio group with vocals provided by Ron Richardson and other top session vocalists including the Luther Vandross Singers. This album gave a disco spin to 70s soul and pop standards.
- Dyn-O-Mite
Tonite's joint is (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, by Mr. Excitement himself, Jackie Wilson. He was backed by the Funk Brothers on this track, were were moonlighting from Motown at the time. Released in August, 1967, the track hit #1 R&B and #6 on the US pop charts. That same year, the track didn't chart in the UK, but a 1969 re-release hit #11, and was subsequently re-released twice more in the UK, charting both times, in 1975 (#25) and 1987 (#15). Higher and Higher is ranked #246 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Stumbled onto this video today and loved it. Didn't realize Jackie Wilson was so influential. He recorded over 50 hit singles before collapsing onstage from a heart attack at the age of 40 while singing "Lonely Teardrops" at a rock'n'roll revival concert organized by Dick Clark (and then lapsed into a nine-year coma). Inducted into the Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the second year inductees were admitted. #69 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 100 performers of all time. And apparently, ripped off big time by executives of Brunswick Records, the label he recorded for. Wilson died broke in 1984, and was initially buried in an unmarked grave! WTF?! The Commodores' 1985 hit Nightshift paid tribute to Wilson and Marvin Gaye, who also died the previous year, and reached #3 pop and #1 R&B. When Michael Jackson accepted his Grammy for Thriller in 1984, he dedicated it to Jackie.
So where's the Jackie Wilson biopic?
- Dyn-O-Mite
One of the records I dug up on a recent trip to one of the few Triangle-area thrift sto's I'd never been to before was Stump Your Feet and Dance, by Kim Taylor. A Peter Brown-produced rare number from 1979 that's going for $150+ on eBay in VG+ or better condition. Mine is all scratched up, but probably still playable, and on red vinyl. Apparently there was an even rarer black vinyl version. Both on Queen Constance Records, one of the labels Peter Brown and Patrick Adams used to propagate their P&P disco spawn across the world's dancefloors.
There's an instrumental on the flip. I've also seen this track credited to Cloud One, and it turns out that's becuz it was released under their name in an earlier, longer instrumental version back in 1977, Stomp Your Feet And Dance.
Like every other Cloud One production I've heard, it was the shit! A monster disco-funk instrumental with insane, tripped out synths and a relentless, driving beat. Guaranteed to keep your body working.
- Dyn-O-Mite
A forgotten disco gem is today's featured joint - Dream World, by Don Downing.
This is the version off his 1978 album Doctor Boogie, but the track was previously released as a single back in 1973, and remixed by Tom Moulton in 1974. Found Doctor Boogie recently at the Goodwill on Garrett Road, it was one of only two records I bought there. On the same thrift sto' excursion, I also stopped by the Elliott Road PTA, and the Durham Rescue Mission on 15-501, where I picked up a dozen at $.99 per.
- Dyn-O-Mite
