Day 27: Grace Jones – Portfolio

 

Today’s disc is a 1977 album that I bought in the 1990s – Portfolio by Grace Jones. I bought this album for one track in particular (La Vie En Rose) after hearing it on a film. The film was 1994’s Prêt-à-Porter (called Ready to Wear in the US). There is talk of a particular Grace Jones video made to go with this track but I can’t find that anywhere (the talk mentions a nipple reveal so maybe that’s why). Here is the album version:

 

I already knew and loved a few Grace Jones tracks when I bought this (Pull Up To The Bumper, My Jamaican Guy, Private Life, Slave to the Rhythm). They were all 1980s tracks and very much part of the Backroom Classics genre mentioned back on Day 21. Somehow her La Vie En Rose had passed me by though, despite being released in 1977 and then again in 1983. 

 

This track saved the movie Prêt-à-Porter because generally it was a big disappointment. In the 1990s I did sometimes write film reviews, attended the Leeds Film Festival religiously and was a big fan of Robert Altman movies (The Player in 1992, Short Cuts in 1993). I was looking forward to Prêt-à-Porter, possibly even went to a midnight press screening, but what a long bore it was. And then (towards the end I think), La Vie En Rose came on and suddenly it was worth the late night entry and the hours of dull dialogue.

 

I’ve realised as I’ve written these posts quite how much film music is in my favourites library (yesterday’s post, for example, and Day 2’s). Albums like the Magnolia soundtrack and the Into the Wild soundtrack are music I’ve never stopped listening to. Just this week I saw the movie The Holdovers and whilst it is a good film, the song by Labi Siffre that is used in the film (Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying) – well, that is just marvellous. Here’s the great man with that song (and if you haven’t yet watched the documentary Labi Siffre: This is my Song get thee to the i-player tout-de-suite):

 

 

But back to Miss Jones. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you listen to the rest of the Portfolio album as it is pretty terrible. It was her first album and it appears it took the record label a few years to work out what to do with this particular artist – there are much, much better versions of songs like Send in the Clowns and What I Did For Love out in the world. And yet La Vie En Rose (produced by Tom Moulton, arranged by Duke Williams) is fantastic, taking an already great song and making it into something new.

 

The song, most of you will know, was first sung by Édith Piaf (and written by her and Louis Guglielmi, also known as Louiguy). It’s also the name of her 2007 biopic that I ill-advisedly watched at many thousand feet on the way back from Canada in 2011 (remember I hate flying anyway and am usually the other side of several Valium and a couple of beers once in the air, plus, spoiler, not all flights end well in that film). She lived 1915-63 and here is her version:

Back tomorrow with some big breakbeats.

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

 

Day 26: Various – Love Jones, the Music (Album Sampler)

Today’s disc is a promo sampler for the soundtrack of the film Love Jones. We probably got this 12-inch single free in the post in 1997 as we got so many promo records by that point that it was hard to keep up with them (which is an annoying thing to moan about so please don’t hear that as a complaint). I’ve never seen the film (Love Jones) but the soulful music on this sampler was real quality and we played a few of the tracks regularly (probably on the radio and most likely at our regular Wednesday evening pub gig, Maxi at the Courtyard in Leeds). At Maxi we relaxed, free from club demands, and organised things like a regular alternative pub quiz.

 

There were a couple of names on this sampler that would have caught my eye straight away. Firstly, there’s Lauryn Hill on side A, track 3. Thanks to the Fugees album The Score (1996), Hill was a major star by this point and I was a fan so I probably went straight to this track by Refugee Camp Allstars (feat. Lauryn Hill):

 

I know this track so well that I presumed it must be on the solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill that came out in 1998 (and that, like many people, I have listened to many, many times) but I must be getting mixed up because it’s not on there. Even if she hasn’t continued to produce work at the same rate or of the same popularity, Hill’s influence has been felt far and wide (she is a favourite of Lin-Manuel Miranda, for example, and her rapping style was one of many influences for Hamilton). I’ve still got that solo Lauryn Hill CD too – it is a total classic:

 

 

There are other great tracks on this Love Jones sampler too. The one I remember playing most was side A track 1 by Dionne Farris, Hopeless. Here it is:

 

I didn’t know this at the time (ah, google, where were you?) but Farris sang with Arrested Development (on Tennessee and a few other tracks, though she wasn’t an official member of the band). The Arrested Development 1992 album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... is another brilliant album. The band are still going, they put out a new single featuring Chuck D and Grandmaster Caz called Hip Hop Saves Lives at the end of last year.

 

Another track on this sampler that we probably played too, if not as much, was side B, track 2 Marcus Miller and Me’shell Ndegeocello with Rush Over. Daisy & I both loved the very chilled but very funky Plantation Lullabies, the 1993 album by Ndegeocello and played it loads (on the radio, mainly). It’s been good to see her name again recently (she signed to jazz label Blue Note in 2023).

 

Back tomorrow with a different Jones.

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

 

 

 

Day 25: Alysha Warren – I Thought I Meant The World To You / I Pray (The S Man’s Hard Mix)

 

Today’s disc was originally a double 12 inch single (full track list here) but we ever only played one of the remixes so I seem to have only kept the disc with that mix. The record is from 1995 and at the time I’m sorry to say that I didn’t give a second thought to the artist (Alysha Warren, a soul singer and younger sister of Mica Paris, apparently) because back then, for us, it was almost always more about the remixes. The remix we played (the S Man’s Hard mix of I Pray) was by Roger Sanchez and it was one of the tracks we played most often when DJing in main rooms in clubs. This is the mix:

 

There were a lot of big-name DJs/producers/remixers in the 1990s (and there are probably even more now). The first names that come to mind when I think about this time, besides Mr Sanchez, are Todd Terry, Masters at Work (‘Little’ Louie Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez), David Morales, C & C Music Factory, Josh Wink, Deep Dish and Armand van Helden (but there were lots of others too). The ones I’ve just listed are all men and from the USA (they were our favourites) but there were lots of UK and other European ones as well (and gradually a few women remixing too). Around that time it wasn’t uncommon to get remix double (or triple) packs of of pop singles as the record companies desperately tried to have that illusive big club remix smash (think Armand van Helden’s remix of the Tori Amos 1996 track Professional Widow – very little of the original song but a huge success, ensuring van Helden was asked to remix pretty much everything for the next few years). 

Most DJs had their favourite producers/remixers and we were no exception. We were definitely van Helden fans and played a few of his remixes and originals and we really loved Roger Sanchez’s work too. For our taste those two made tracks that were hard enough for the clubs we could get work in but were still warm, funky, enjoyable music – not something that made you feel like you’d been banged over the head with a dustbin lid multiple times. Generally speaking the clubs that booked us for main rooms (at least in part the ones that were more open to the idea of women DJing) were also the places where the music got harder and faster as the 1990s progressed, a lot of it not really our taste to be honest and a lot of it influenced by the sounds of the London after-hours club Trade* in the mid to late 1990s. 

Somehow (due to writing record reviews, I suppose) I managed to get on the mailing list for the prestigious US record label Strictly Rhythm at some point in the mid 1990s. It’s funny to think that back then if I heard someone in my life say Strictly they were always talking about American house/garage (whereas now they are always talking about a UK TV show that features ballroom and Latin dancing). Anyway, getting onto the SR mailing list was a bit after their peak but we still managed to get some records (white labels no less, i.e. promos, not the ones sold in the shops) that became staples of our main room DJ sets. This one from 1995 (pictured above), was the Strictly 4 the Underground EP (and in particular the track Livin 4 the Underground) by Roger Sanchez. We played this a lot:

 

We never DJed at any of the clubs where Roger Sanchez played unfortunately but I did hear him play at another Leeds club (Back to Basics**) at some point in the mid 1990s. Daisy and I had played an early set at Vague (with some dustin-lid banging London DJ taking over at midnight most likely) but I knew Roger S was playing just a few streets away so a friend and I abandoned our usual ship and trotted round to the other. We didn’t have to queue (yay establishment!) but we did enjoy hours and hours of dancing to Roger Sanchez’s brilliant music and DJing (one of my favourite nights out from that period – great sound, great tunes, just dancing, no having to listen to coked-up theories and ‘great ideas’). A lot of DJs and producers are a bit overhyped and disappointing when you hear them – Roger S was spectacular. 

 

Roger Sanchez is very much still working in clubs and production and is on social media if you want to go and see what he’s up to (some very glamorous photo shoots, but it’s Instagram so that’s to be expected I suppose).

 

Back tomorrow with something completely different.

 

*I did go to Trade once and had a great time but it must have been before we were DJing because I remember standing in a queue (and I certainly never did that once we were part of the, I suppose you could call it, establishment). I think the music wasn’t quite so full on mental at that point.

 

**Basics was a Leeds institution for a long time. Largely because we worked at another club in the city we didn’t go that often but I did come across an interesting (if very long) article by Basics resident DJ Ralph Lawson about DJing when I was ‘researching’ this series of posts (read it here). Also it was on another trip to Basics that we first heard Armand van Helden’s unlikely take on Ace of Bass’s Living in Danger (a great remix – we borrowed that idea and played that remix too).

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

Day 24: The Blackout Allstars – I Like It Like That

 

Today’s disc is a 1994 remix of a song from a movie (also from 1994). That remix was one of our most often played end-of-set tunes as DJs in the mid 1990s. This is the mix we played:

 

I know we bought this record new (and full price) but can’t remember where (it might even have been at Fourth Wave in Huddersfield, a shop I mentioned yesterday). Having studied Spanish and lived in Spain I had a real weakness for Latin house (and Latin music) in general so this appealed to me straight away. We didn’t play a lot of the obvious big party tracks of the time (the resident DJs at the clubs we played at played a lot of those) so we had to find our own favourites (and wanted to in a lot of cases). This mix (remixed by Bobby D’Ambrosio) worked well for us as a big-finish and, even better, I really liked it. Nobody ever complained about it so I imagine the people on the dancefloor liked it too.

 

I’ve never seen the film this version was recorded for (the film is also called I Like It Like That) but it was about young Puerto Ricans living in New York. Looking it up now I see that it stars, amongst others, the legend that is Rita Moreno and also Jon Seda, who is in one of my favourite TV shows ever (Treme, set in New Orleans and featuring loads of great music, he plays Nelson Hidalgo). The artist for the soundtrack (The Blackout Allstars) was a one-off supergroup featuring Ray Barretto, Sheila E., Tito Puente, Tito Nieves, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Valentin, Grover Washington Jr., and Tony Pabon. Here is their unremixed version of the track (not that different to the first video but better pics):

 

This in turn was a cover of a 1967 track by Pete Rodríguez (pianist and bandleader, now 91 years old). It was written by Tony Pabon and Manny Rodriguez, vocals on the song by Pabon. It has been sampled more recently by people who mean more to our daughter than to me (Cardi B confuses me, artist or outfit?). Let’s hear that 1967 original now – it’s brilliant (and if I were to DJ now I’d probably play this version – boogaloo has lasted well):

 

Back tomorrow with a house favourite.

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

Day 23: Solitaire Gee – Slumberland

Today’s disc is the 1993 12 inch single Slumberland by Solitaire Gee. Yesterday’s discs were from 1995 so I’m mixing the timeline up again, apologies. Today’s disc is just a lovely, big piece of house music with the sample “it’s groovy baby, it’s groovy baby” (it’s my birthday and you’ve got to try and feel groovy on your birthday, haven’t you, especially when it’s this end of the 50s?). The record label Warp that today’s disc is on, you might recall, has already been mentioned this month (back on Day 16). I don’t remember where I first heard Slumberland but I know it was one of those tracks that stands out in a set and it was pretty popular. It was the Rhythm Invention mix that got the play (Rhythm Invention being Nick Simpson and Richard Brown, both used many names for production and have busy entries on Discogs). The mix in question sounds like this:

 

Solitaire Gee (John Gilpin and Raz Shamshad) were from Huddersfield (not far from Leeds where we lived at the time) and we did get to know John a bit when we were DJing, even worked with him a little. Raz ran the record shop Fourth Wave in Huddersfield (much friendlier than the average dance record shop in the 1990s) and the pair made music together and separately. 

 

John Gilpin’s solo stuff was released under the name Lex Loofah and we played his track The Feelin’ (AA side with Jacked) a lot in our house DJ sets in the mid/late 1990s. You can see this one looks well used:

 

We rarely heard other DJs playing The Feelin’ so it really felt like one of our tracks (if we had a sound, this was it). Listening to it again this week put me right back in a DJ booth, wondering what the hell to play next (we didn’t plan sets as such, some DJs did, some didn’t – maybe it would have been a more relaxing experience if we had). We really liked John and his music – he was just a chilled guy who loved making tunes. This record was released on the label Phat Records and it sounds like this:

 

 

 

Quick one today – back tomorrow with some Latin house.

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

Day 22: Tricky – Hell is Round the Corner/Pumpkin

 

Today’s disc is plural (so add an s) as it is two 12-inch singles and a CD (a CD finally makes an appearance!). The artist is Tricky and the singles are both pictured above. They are both tracks from Tricky’s 1995 album Maxinquaye which I had on CD (and still have, pic below):

 

 

 

The lead track on the orange single is Pumpkin – the track from Maxinquaye that features Alison Goldfrapp on co-writing and vocals (most of the rest of the album features vocals by Martina Topley-Bird – both women have gone on to many successes since with all kinds of music). Coloured vinyl isn’t the most popular with DJs because the sound quality isn’t always the best but we did play a track on the B side of this one (the Alex Reece remix of Brand New You’re Retro), mostly when we played in a back room at the delightfully named Cockpit in Leeds in the mid to late 1990s. This is the mix (both it and the original of this track are great):

 

As for the other single, Hell is Round the Corner has long been a favourite track of mine. When we used to listen to the album (often late into the night/early in the morning) it was lyrics from this that used to stick in my mind (“until then, you have to live with yourself” etc. – hear the track at the end of this post). 

 

Tricky was from Bristol, worked with Massive Attack early on and there are lots of crossovers in terms of sounds and samples with them and other artists from that part of the world at around that time (i.e. Portishead). In certain corners of the internet arguments can be found regarding which artist and album was better and who used such and such sample better. I’ve even been lectured once on how Maxinquaye was only so good (and successful) because of its co-producer Mark Saunders (and he has been in this series already, back on Day 13 with Neneh Cherry). 

 

To be honest, I like this and albums by Massive Attack and Portishead. I don’t have a favourite and I don’t feel the need to fight for one over the other. My former DJ partner is still a big Tricky fan (she saw him live last year I think) but I can’t say I’ve followed him in the same way (he went a bit more punk after this album and she was always more punk than me). All I know is I loved this album in the mid 1990s and it was a good companion for both of us at that time. I listened to it again this week and the variety on it has held up to a point (the cover of Public Enemy’s Black Steel and both of today’s tracks are probably my favourites, then and now). I can’t say I still enjoy the clunky industrial sounds on some of the tracks now as much as I did in 1995 but then it was coming after years of happy house and was a welcome change, whereas now it’s more the sound of a time (and a time quite long ago – nearly 20 years). The tracks I can still enjoy now are the ones where Martina’s haunting vocals and Tricky’s distinctive drawled spoken word are doing most of the work (less trip hop, just mellow hip hop, perhaps). I’ve often joked that Hell is Round the Corner is on my (own) personal funeral playlist. I’ve enjoyed it again this week and I’d say it’s still on the list of possibles. Enjoy:

 

Back tomorrow with a Huddersfield house master.

 

For the first intro post to this series go here. 

Day 21: Prince – Alphabet St.

 

Today’s disc is the 1988 single from Prince – Alphabet St. I’m guessing this record was once in a plain black sleeve because I don’t think I ever had a picture cover for it. I didn’t buy it in the ’80s, probably more like the early ’90s for DJing purposes. I know some people are devoted Prince fans (the live shows were amazing, fans will tell you) but to be honest I’ve not, as yet, been quite that way inclined. I remember my brother loving Little Red Corvette when it came out in 1983 (and it was played at a sister’s funeral in 2022 so it’s obviously a family favourite) but to be honest a good part of Prince’s music from that era did very little for me (ditto a lot of 1980s music really). I’ve always liked some of his individual songs and I tried to watch the film Purple Rain around 1984 but didn’t make it to the end. Did anyone? 

 

On the whole it’s Prince’s funk tracks, like Alphabet St., that I’ve most enjoyed*. I can’t remember when or how we bought it but this one was something we played a lot when we were booked to DJ in smaller rooms in clubs (backrooms, bars etc.). With the main room full of house, trance or whatever, on the whole people wanted something different in the smaller room and DJs tried various ways of approaching this. Some just played what we (in the record shop) called ‘backroom classics’. These were tried and tested disco classics and pop faves from across the ages like Shannon’s Let the Music Play and Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell. In the record shop we joked about making up backroom classics ready-to-go packs to sell to people who’d just got their first booking for a smaller room (snidey yes, but that’s practically in the job description when you work in a record shop). Daisy and I tried to avoid playing too many of the obvious tunes (not unusual, lots of DJs do that) but it could be tricky to find things that didn’t feel overplayed but that still made people whoop and holler (that’s the kind of club we played in most often – whoopy hollery places). This track though – funky as hell but not particularly played in clubs (that I heard in the 1990s anyway):

 

A short and sweet post today – back tomorrow with a Bristol accent.

*If you’re interested my other favourite Prince tracks are probably Sign o’ the Times, U Got the Look, Kiss (that was played a lot in clubs, the original and covers) and If I Was Your Girlfriend. I’m also partial to the sort of sister song to that one that came along a few years later (If I Were A Boy by Beyonce). I looked it up just now and found it was written by Toby Gad and singer/songwriter BC Jean (it was written for the latter to record for her own album – hear her singing it here, quite a different version). BC Jean is also in a band with and married to Mark Ballas (son of Shirley, judge on the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing TV show) so it would seem that everything comes back to Strictly (I wrote far too many posts about the show, another family favourite, back here). 

For the first intro post to this series of discs go here.