Day 13: Neneh Cherry – Buffalo Stance

 

Today’s disc is a 12” single by Neneh Cherry. It was released in 1988 but I don’t remember being really aware of it till more like ’89 (and I bought this single much later, probably once I was DJing in the mid 1990s). Cherry’s album Raw Like Sushi came out in 1989 and it was HUGE (in the UK anyway), full of great tracks. Buffalo Stance is the first track on side A of that album and here is its video (fairly typical of dance videos of that era, lots of stuff floating about).

I’m not a big user of the word cool but really, if anyone was cool around this time it was Neneh Cherry. Her style was very influential – certainly I bought a plastic gold dollar sign necklace in Top Shop and wore it regularly in nightclubs (I’m sure I looked amazing, luckily I’ve no photos to shatter this illusion). I’m not going to give you her life story here but you can read it easily enough in the usual place. She performed this track on TV’sTop of the Pops whilst 7 months pregnant in the days when such a thing was still newsworthy (pregnant woman does something, shock!).

 

As for today’s track, this is all news to me (a bit late, I know) but Buffalo Stance is actually a reworking of a 1987 track called Looking Good Diving by the duo Morgan-McVey. McVey is Cameron McVey (often credited as Booga Bear) and Cherry’s husband since 1990. They met in 1987 and she was featured on the B side of the Morgan-McVey single that same year. Here it is:

 

From a musical family and having already been in punk bands, Cherry was on a single Stop the War: Give Sheep a Chance (about the Falklands War, complete with baa noises) in 1982 (you can hear that here, I have never heard it before this week – anyone else?). Rerecording Looking Good Diving to make Buffalo Stance was a big jump up in terms of audience and appeal and the producers for this transformation were Tim Simenon (Bomb the Bass) and Mark Saunders. Simenon DJed at the Wag club in London (the club mentioned in yesterday’s post) so it’s possible I did hear him DJ there in 1989 (I was absolutely not taking note of anything like that in 1989 though so no idea if that’s the case). Bomb the Bass had various singles, remixes and so on. Probably the one I liked (and played) the most came a good few years later – Bug Powder Dust feat Justin Warfield (but the Kruder and Dorfmeister mixes are the best). Tim Simenon produced under his own name too (bands like Depeche Mode).

 

The Raw Like Sushi album had 4 producers (Simenon, McVey, Saunders and Jonny Dollar). Dollar co-wrote Cherry’s later single with Youssou N’Dour 7 Seconds and Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. He worked on albums for various artists including Massive Attack, Gabrielle and, a while later in 2010, Eliza Doolittle. Raw Like Sushi’s hits also included Inna City Mamma, Manchild and Kisses on the Wind. I have another disc of hers too, featuring one of my favourite tracks (Here I Come). 

Cherry has gone on to put out more albums, be on TV and in films. She has 3 daughters (one a photographer, the other two singers) and in 2022 put out the album The Versions (featuring reworked versions of tracks from her back catalogue). One of the reworkings was of Woman and featured Anohni - a great version.

Back tomorrow with another classic.

For the first intro post to this series go here.