VOLUME 3 · PROGRAM 6
Bill and Trip's "Bitchin' 50s" Medley, Taxi sings "Get Back", Amy Bolton with "Talk Talk" and "Tres Chichi" is permanent wave.
Program 6 begins with a retrospective look at the late 1950s and early 1960s with another special medley produced by Bill Motley and Trip Ringwald. These guys are so great that Motown lifted 97% of their Supremes Medley from Program 3, forgot the label credits and butchered the ending… yet still have the hottest selling 12" record today. Bill and Trip's magic is in carefully crafting edits and segways to provide a good balance between surprise and flow. Just watch your dance floor when you play Side A… and you'll see this magic in action again.
The medley includes "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" by Neil Sedaka (Rocket/RCA Records; Sedaka-Greenfield), "It's My Party" by Leslie Gore (Mercury; Wiener-Gluck-Gold), "Diana" by Paul Anka (ABC; Anka), "Come And Get These Memories" by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (Gordy; Holland-Dozier-Holland) "Come Go With Me" by The Dell Vikings (Delfi; Quick), "My Guy" by Mary Wells (Motown; Robinson), "Sherry" by The Four Seasons (VeeJay; Gaudio), and "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison (Monument; Orbison-Dees.)
Get Back / Taxi. We move from the 1960s to the 1980s with one drum break. Taxi is a new dance rock group from Sweden, and they sound to us like MFSB meets Abba. Lucille Wikstrom is the talented lead singer who grew up in the U.S. Jorgen Olsson and Pal Wrange play guitar, Mans Wrange is on the drums and Goran Ingvarsson is on piano and keyboard. Anne-Louise Ivaarson is coordinating Taxi's first LP for Sound of Scandanavia Productions, with label deals set for several European countries.
Talk Talk/Tres Chichi / Amy Bolton. Amy is 24, with long blond hair and blue eyes. She grew up in The Bronx, and says that "Rock and roll is an attitude. It's mean, lean, hard and tight." She studied classical piano from age 4 on, and worked for a music publisher for 6 years. She wrote "Tres Chichi" after being shotdown by her boyfriend on her telephone answering machine. While most of today's rock won't hold a dance floor, Amy will. Jimmy Bralower and Steve Catania produced for Wonderland Corporation, and they know that good rhythm helps make a good dance song. Amy's now sold throughout most of Europe, and should make a U.S. label rich and happy soon.
SPECIAL NOTE TO DJs: Side A runs about 17 minutes, starting at 126 BPM and coming to a sharp, cold end.
Raul makes Ice T's "New York to L.A." very refreshing.
You won't believe this song. Most people said it was a hot 7 minutes when we tested Raul's fabulous Dance Mix, yet, it's an 11 minute event. Ice T was produced by John Lieberman for John T. Lam Productions in various studios, and mixed by New York, New York's Raul at Vanguard Studios with Mark "Do It To Me" Berry engineering. This is good, old time party music, also known as disco music. The break is actually longer than the song (why not?), and includes the first real marriage of tight disco clunk with rock guitars. After a few plays, they'll be singing it while waiting for a standby number at Pan Am.
SPECIAL NOTE TO DJs: Side B runs 11:07 at a fast 126 BPM.
What are they saying on Mike Lewis' fabulous Foxy remix?
Buried at the end of Foxy's "Party Boys" LP was a song that had to be played. Even at 3:18, a lot of jocks found that people really got off on Ish's lead vocals, the laid-back arrangement and the special effects. The Dash LP may soon have a 12" bonus stuffed inside it, as this remix is just too much.
Mike Lewis massaged the tracks at Allen Zentz's studio in Los Angeles. Mike plays at Studio One, and had double honors earlier this year as winner of both Billboard's Los Angeles area DJ of the year and The Southern California Disco DJ Association's DJ of the Year award. In his spare time (????), Mike works at an audio equipment store, and tells us that the consumer is no longer stupid and with the equipment out now, hears every pop and click. Ricky Asher engineered, assisted by John VanNeste. Thank Ricky for those wonderfully pleasing mousetraps and other paraphenalia twisting through his harmonizers and aural exciters.
But… what are the people at the party saying during the special party break on the record? No one can be sure, but if you check out this program's feedback card, you'll find a spot to enter Disconet's "What are they saying during the fabulous Foxy remix" contest. Fill in the missing words… check out the side at home with good midrange reproduction, or better yet, with headphones. All correct entries will be placed in a box, and Laurie will randomly draw the winner. The winner wins a trip to Miami where he or she will personally meet Ish and go for a ride in his Jeep. Ish may even tell you what the lyrics to the song are! The winner will also meet TK/Dash President Henry Stone, who may or may not let you pull on his bushy white beard. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so listen carefully.
SPECIAL NOTE TO DJs: Bonus Side 1 runs 10:26 at 128 BPM.
John and Mike chronicle your 1979 favorites with "No More Medlies (Enough Is Enough.)"
We counted 165 votes from the feedback from Program 4, double-checked what Brian Chin, Frank Reardon, Barry Lederer and Dance Music had to say about 1979, and after lenghthy legal negotiations because of multilabel committments, were able to bring John Matarazzo (from Charlie's West in East Orange, NJ) and Mike Arato (from Uncle Sam's in Long Island) together to put 1979 together for you. John distinguished himself earlier on Disconet with the remix of Celi Bee's "Blow My Mind", and Mike has worked on such interesting label remixes as "The Break" and "Take A Chance."
Your comments on the 1977 and 1978 medlies helped shape a shorter medley for 1979, which should still provide historians with a broad based capsule of 1979's dance music. Perhaps the most interesting "duet" via a long overlay is France Joli singing and Valapucci breathing, or maybe it's Machine and Kat Mandu. In any case, your 1979 Top Tune Medley (with the sequence of songs listed below along with label, artist and writer credits) should be a very useable tool right now and an invaluable retrospective in the years ahead.
SPECIAL NOTE TO DJs: Bonus Side 2 runs an all-too-short 15 minutes beginning at 116 BPM and ending at 130 BPM.
| Song | Artist | P Label | Author(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| I've Got My Mind Made Up* | Instant Funk | 1978 Salsoul | Miller-Miller-Earl |
| Here Comes That Sound Again | Love DeLuxe | 1979 Warner | Hawkshaw |
| This Time Baby | Jackie Moore | 1979 CBS | James-Bell |
| Harmony | Suzi Lane | 1979 Elektra | Moroder-Bellotte-Bastow |
| Don't Stop Til You Get Enough | Michael Jackson | 1979 CBS/Epic | Jackson |
| Dancer | Gino Soccio | 1979 Warner | Soccio |
| Come On And Do It* | Poussez | 1979 Vanguard | Mouzon |
| Deputy Of Love | Don Armando's Second Ave. Rhumba Band | 1979 ZE | Rogers |
| Heaven Must Have Sent You | Bonnie Pointer | 1979 Motown | Holland-Dozier-Holland |
| Don't You Want My Love | Debbie Jacobs | 1979 MCA | Sabu |
| Never Gonna Say Goodbye* | Poussez | 1979 Vanguard | Mouzon |
| I've Got The Next Dance | Deniece Williams | 1979 ARC | Williams-Fowler-Johnson |
| Ain't Nothing Gonna Keep Me From You | Teri DeSario | 1978 Casablanca | B. Gibb |
| The Break* | Kat Mandu | 1979 TK | LePage |
| There But For The Grace Of God Go I | Machine | 1979 RCA | Nance-Darnell |
| Come To Me | France Joli | 1979 Prelude | Greene |
| Love Attack* | Ferrara | 1979 Midsong | Ferrara |
| No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) | Donna Summer/ Barbra Streisand | 1979 CBS/ Casablanca | Jabara-Roberts |
| *From the special DISCONET pressing by Bobby DJ Guttadaro (Instant Funk); Raul (Poussez); Bob Viteritti (Kat Mandu); Valapucci (Ferrara.) | |||
Mark Hultmark wins the LCD chronograph. Mark plays at The Hunt and The Chase in Indianapolis, and his pressing registration number for Program 4 matched the lucky winning number (#467.) Mark's favorite songs on Program 4 were "Shady Lady" by Strutt & Company, "Let Me Blow Your Whistle" by Laura Greene, and the original European version of "I'm OK, You're OK" by American Gypsy. We've sent Mark the watch that does everything. Congratulations!