Sweetback! is back at the Monarch Tavern for 2012!
Friday, January 27, 2012
SWEETBACK! v.16 :
“Pinball Hustle”
Another evening of smokin’ hot rare disco, funk, space disco and dancefloor jazz rolls into the newly renovated Monarch Tavern. Never a cover and lots of room for dancing, booty shaking and cutting the rug.
This months Djs are:
David James – Founder of Toronto’s classic disco and disco/house soundsystem “Do you Remember disco?” and host of the “Moovin’ in the right direction” radio show on CIUT 89.5FM, featuring the hottest leftfield house, disco and disco edits in the City.
Uncle Funke – A selector extraordinaire with a touch like no other on the wheels of steel sure to motivate your feet across the dancefloor. This is the first time Uncle Funke has been at a Sweetback in over a year.
Jive Express – Armed with a vault of dangerous beats and dancefloor treasures Josh Laing (guitarist for the Chameleon Project) aka, the Jive Express continues to breath life into forgotten classics and disco monsters.
No Cover!
Come Early, Stay Late, Shake Your Booty, Don’t Hate.
Also – for your listening enjoyment, Jive Express recorded his set from last month’s Sweetback! and today, here on this site, we bring it to you. Through the power of Soundcloud, This heady mix of rare disco and funk is what you can expect at each and every Sweetback!
The return of Toronto’s baddest rare disco and funk night!
After a year long absence, the Sweetback! thumps it’s way into the newly renovated, Monarch Tavern for a free event! (no cover). We are on a mission to fill the air with lost classics, old favorites and dangerous dancefloor selections. We aim to put hustle in your bustle and bump in your grind as we fill the room with vibe. You bring your booty to the dancefloor and we got you covered at the door. It’s tight like that.
This edition of the Sweetback! the djs will include:
The Jive Express: Gutiarist for the Chameleon Project and collector of tracks so rare and lowdown even yo mama’s mama do know about them.
MJ Shaps: bassist and composer for King Sunshine and The Soul Motivators and disco selector extrodinaire!
DJ Voltaire Ramos: Guitarist for the Soul Motivators and esteemed Jazz/Funk enthusiast.
Coming to the disc as an admittedly unfamiliar Buddy Holly fan, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve heard a few Buddy Holly songs in my travels, but his brand of pop never really struck a chord with me. As a kid I listened to the 50s & 60s hits of course, but I was primarily a Beach Boys guy growing up. No doubt inspired by some neon typefaced movie soundtrack initially, they became my first heavy rotation band at six years old.
That said, even the Brian Wilson cut of “Listen To Me” didn’t grab me the first play through. It wasn’t really until Jackson Browne’s haunting “True Love Ways” at track 5 that I opened up to the groove. A stand out cover, but could also stand on its own, Browne’s vocal tone and use of pedal steel round out an appropriate portrait. Then in true diametric juxtoposition, Peggy Sue jumps out and grabs your junk. Well, Cobra Starship give her that treatment anyway. Starting off in dangerous territory, they do manage to pull out a memorable rendition, albeit lacking a lot of replay potential. Your toddlers might enjoy this version though, as it certainly kicks the Wiggles’ ass. Not that I’d know.
One highlight was The Fray’s cover of “Take Your Time”, which had an immediate and deep resonance for me. When the vocalist began, I noticed a little teen heartthrob quality that I might expect to hear while watching a young warewolf or vampire saga. Maybe they’ve been heard there already, but as I listened deeper I heard something reminiscent of Matchbox 20′s big debut and Wide Mouth Mason’s Self-titled Warner release. By far this was the most commercial cut on the compilation, but that didn’t negate it from also becoming a personal favourite.
Music’s living legends are all over the tracklist with Stevie Nicks, Chris Isaak, Linda Ronstadt, Natalie Merchant and even Eric Idle donating songs to this collection benefiting the Songwriters.org Listen To Me program. Ringo Starr does a particularly groovy job of giving “Think It Over” the flower power makeover, while Lyle Lovett won me over with a real live show feel. His effort shines through thanks to some wide open mixing and a genuine performance. It ain’t funk, but it’s got soul.
The collection has a wide spectrum, much like Buddy Holly’s song catalog itself, and this disc may be better as a singles collection; pieced out to the people track by track. I hope they don’t force you to buy it all for a good cause, but only ever listen to 20% of it again. That would be a barrier… I mean, bummer… wouldn’t it?
As science teaches us, all things in nature are subject to evolution. Is a song any different? From the time people stretched animal skins to beat with bones there has been a progression of sound. Each generation of a rhythm or melody building on what came before. Changing slightly, but usually revealing its genome in a trill, a texture, or a telling transcribing. Within every song, there is a lineage. The aboriginal peoples of Australia call them “Songlines” and if you follow them, they will often take you to new and interesting places.
The year is 1969 and a young up-and-comer in the record business is looking for new opportunities when the record label he works for folds. Now called Mustang and Bronco, the labels have hits like “I Fought The Law”, not to mention US and UK hits for one aritst directly under his management, Felice Taylor. With his career temporarily on hold, he agrees to write and produce a theme song for the Hanna-Barbera children’s TV series ‘The Banana Splits’. As is true to this day, music used in film or television can be very lucrative and the song “Doin’ The Banana Split” kept him in a positive cash flow for some time.
Prior to his work at Mustang/Bronco, he played drums and keys for an artist named Jackie Lee, touring on the strength of a song called “The Duck”. The two grew tight on that tour and when Jackie needed a new single he knew exactly who to call.
In 1970, Jackie Lee released the first ever recorded version of the classic “Your Sweetness Is My Weakness” written by none other than Mr. Barry White. That recording has never been re-released and can be found only on a 7″ vinyl single, played at 45 revolutions per minute. This version of the song was a Billboard “Soul Sauce” pick of the week in the October 10, 1970 issue along with the comment “Bound to be big”.
The name Jackie Lee was just a pseudonym conujured up by Earl Lee Nelson, whose wife’s name was Jackie. He also recorded under the names Earl Cosby, Chip Nelson and under the slightly more familiar moniker: Jay Dee. Jay Dee’s first album in 1974 called ‘Come On In Love’ was entirely produced by Barry White, and almost entirely written too. It included yet another recording of “Your Sweetness Is My Weakness”, this time with the songwriter himself at the helm to make it sound proper.
While producing the album for Jay Dee, Barry White’s solo career and his recordings with Love Unlimited were burning up the charts. His debut album ‘I’ve Got So Much To Give’ and its lead single “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby” went Gold. His recording of the instrumental “Love’s Theme” by Love Unlimited and re-released as The Love Unlimited Orchestra climbed to No. 1 on the USA charts and top 10 in twenty-five countries around the world. Barry White even married Glodean James of Love Unlimited, making 1974 a very big year for “The Man”.
Between 1973 and 1979, 20 albums were released on 20th Century records under the name Barry White, Love Unlimited or The Love Unlimited Orchestra, almost all of which achieved at least Gold status in the USA. He sold $16 million worth of records in just 1974 alone and Barry White was deemed responsible for the ‘Baby Boom’ in the mid-Seventies as reported by the New York Times. “Not me personally,” he would joke, “but my music.”
Barry White achieved a long list of classics, with songs such as “Love’s Theme”, “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe”, “Let The Music Play”, “What Am I Gonna Do With You”, and “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me” becoming a virtual soundtrack to the 70s era.
In 1978 “The Man” would finally get his chance to record “Your Sweetness Is My Weakness” in what I suspect would be the way he first imagined it. With the release of the album “The Man”, a 12″ Disco single was distributed to DJs around the world featuring an epic 8-minute love-making eargasm of a song. As a single it climbed to #60 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 9 weeks on the chart.
For your listening enjoyment, here are all three versions of my personal favourite Barry White lullabye. The ultra-rare Jackie Lee version (1970), the more widely distributed Jay Dee version (1974), and the eventual masterpiece by Barry White himself (1978).
The golden era of ‘60s and ‘70s soul music boasts a great tradition for Christmas songs and, following in the footsteps of classic Christmas albums from the Motown stable and James Brown, Strut enter the festive spirit this November with the first ever Yuletide compilation on the label, IN THE CHRISTMAS GROOVE, bringing together 12 rare soul, funk and blues cuts rediscovered from Christmases past. Featuring tracks often only ever released as obscure 45 B-sides, the compilation tracks one-off moments when the good groove met the jingle bells to devastating effect. Artists include bluesman Jimmy Reed, jamming hard on ‘Christmas Present Blues’ and Calypsonian Capt. Elmo McKenzie with a lilting Yuletide Caribbean ode on Barbados label Trex.
IN THE CHRISTMAS GROOVE was released on CD and digital on November 23rd and features an extensive booklet including original sleeve artwork and sleeve notes by James Maycock of Mojo magazine.
For more info and to send a free christmas track visit
This past weekend we had the honour of welcoming Mr. Scruff back to Toronto at the Wrongbar. He played a monumental 4-hour+ set of the funkiest original grooves and re-edits around. One favourite is the following, which I absolutely had to track down after hearing it that night.
It comes courtesy Leftside Wobble, who describes it as: “[My] first edit of 2010 and it’s a cut of what is probably my all time favourite Curtis Mayfield track – spliced and diced with love into a 15 minute disco monster.”
I don’t normally link-out to other pages, but I have to give this man his due. Hope you all enjoy!
I know this is a long time in coming, but I found it very difficult to write an appropriate musical eulogy for the best friend disco ever had: Michael Jackson.
Right from the start, J5 singles smacked down dancefloors and burned up the charts. “I Want You Back” reached number one in January 1970, “ABC” shortly after. Those Motown years produced some monster tracks for disco including “Hum Along and Dance” which featured an 8 minute 11 second hardcore Norman Whitfield boogie and the refrain “Ain’t no words to this song …. you just dancin on and on …”.
That song was featured on the album “G.I.T.: Get It Together”, which transitioned each song seamlessly into the next, bringing the disco DJ experience to your livingroom. They continued recording disco jams like “Life Of The Party”, not released on any album and sold only 36,000 singles but one of the most underrated disco songs of the era and “Forever Came Today” a Diana Ross original reworked into a disco smash that claimed number one on the Billboard Hot Dance chart for three weeks in July ’75.
When The Jacksons left Motown for CBS they started by recording “Enjoy Yourself”, a favourite spin at Sweetback!, and followed it up with dancefloor classics “Blame It On The Boogie” and “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)”. But the Jacksons’ disco legacy was only a beginning for Michael.
During production of “The Wiz” where Michael Jackson starred as the scarecrow, the film’s score arranger Quincey Jones agreed to produce his new “little brother”‘s next solo album. What came out of this collaboration was… indescribable.
“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, “Rock With You”, “Workin’ Day and Night”, “Get On The Floor”, “Off the Wall” and “Burn This Disco Out” really did burn disco dancefloors out as the spins mounted up. To this day, any of these songs will fill a dancefloor with wallclingers of all ages. They are just THAT good.
From this point the disco sound was starting to give way to the 80s, but Michael Jackson still gave us plenty to dance about with the Thriller album’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”, “Billie Jean”, “Beat It”, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” and a beat driven duet with Pop icon Paul McCartney that Sweetback! still employs regularly: “Say, Say, Say”.
There are so many cuts I could have picked for this goodbye, but there was always one I would come back to. No matter how deep into the crate I dug, my fingers kept lingering on the most popular Jackson 5 disco jam that appeared not only as a 7″ and 12″ single, but also on two albums. Long before Michael Jackson debuted the moonwalk on Motown 25 in 1983, he popularized another dance move during a Soul Train performance of this song in 1973.
I hope you’re in a better place now MJ, doing the robot on a cloud:
A lot of people wonder “what was the first disco song?” Like anything subject to evolution, the true origins of a genre are difficult to pinpoint accurately, especially when considering something as subjective as music. What two people hear in any given song may be entirely different.
The most commonly accepted answers include “Soul Makossa” by Manu Dibango in 1973, the extremely danceable and highly syncopated “One Night Affair” recorded by Jerry Butler co-written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff in 1972, Isaac Hayes’ 1971 smash hit “Shaft”, or anything by Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra. I propose however, that we rewind just a little further back.
In 1969, a horn-rock group formed in Seattle, Washington who would very quickly earn the reputation of stealing shows from the headlining bands they would open for. Their extended jam style and groove oriented, horn driven performances were such an intense and satisfying experience for concert goers, audiences would leave after their set, demonstrating no further interest in seeing the headliner. This didn’t bother Jimi Hendrix, a childhood friend of band members Luther Rabb and Ronnie Hammon, who asked them to open every show on his 1970 “Cry of Love” tour.
They would go on to release four albums between 1970 and 1974, all containing original drum lines, rich melodies, intense orchestration and extra helpings of “Wah-Wah” guitar; the building blocks of Disco life. After 1974, the members disbanded and continued to play music separately with top acts like Santana and War. The band’s music would disappear from relative popularity until 1989, when a rapper named Young MC would create his own Grammy Award winning single by famously sampling the dance break in Rabb and Hammon’s lead off song on their first album.
That track, off Columbia Record’s 1970 LP release and self-titled debut “Ballin’Jack”, is my candidate for the first song in true Disco style. If you can’t dance to this, you just can’t dance:
The thing I have found about hip-hop is that so many of the truly great songs have borrowed their hooks and baselines from classic funk and disco tracks most people probably don’t remember, or the new generation never heard. To think of a few off the top of my head, would you know that Eminem’s “My Name Is …” was Labi Siffre’s “I Got The …”, J Dilla’s “Dilla Says Go” used The Trammps “Rubber Band”, and Dr Dre’s “Nothin’ But A ‘G’ Thang” was most recognizable as Leon Haywood’s “I Want’a Do Somethin’ Freaky To You” but also contained portions of Kid Dynamite’s “Uphill Peace of Mind”.
Well Hip hop has done it again, reviving a relatively obscure classic deserving of a second spin. When Jadakiss released his album “The Last Kiss” on April 7th, I listened through and found myself drawn to the track “By My Side” which was noticeably different from the rest of the cuts. On closer inspection I found that indeed we had another case of under-appreciated disco.
Teena Marie never won any awards for her own songs, all of which were written, produced, sung and arranged herself from 1980′s “Irons in the Fire” and going forward. She was also Rick James’ protege and together they recorded some great tunes, but what she would ultimately be recognized for was the song “Oh La La La” which reached the top of Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart, and remains her only #1 single to date. You may remember this song re-interpreted as the chorus for The Fugees’ “Fu-Gee-La” in 1995 which remains The Fugees’ top selling single and certified Gold.
But in her first release as writer, producer, artist and arranger, Teena Marie would hit the top 40 with this song, a true dancefloor jam, and respectfully brought back to life by Jadakiss for us all to enjoy again:
In the Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton book “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life”, Tom Moulton describes how he and his mastering engineer José Rodriguez were cutting 7″ metal blanks for Al Downing’s “I’ll Be Holding On” when Tom Moulton decided the spectrum wasn’t rich enough. He deduced that the grooves on a 7″ record were too small to carry a real bottom end since they were more geared toward radio play, preferring a sound that was all middle. So they tried it on a 10″ record and the sound difference was astronomical. They cut so many 10″ acetates that when they started the next project, Moment Of Truth’s “So Much For Love”, they had run out. So José suggested they try it on a 12″ blank and thus make the sound even louder. This was the birth of the DJs most effective tool… the very first 12″ single.
On one side they cut an extended mix of the song (Also known as a Tom Moulton Mix), and on the other an instrumental version. It was on the strength of that 12″ release Moment Of Truth was signed to Salsoul Records and their next release came with “So Much For Love” as the B side.
The A Side for that next release, the second ever publicly available 12″ Disco Single, is less known. But it is a monstrous raging carnivore of a disco song, complete with full-on orchestral arrangement, heavy horns, soulful vibes, rhythm guitar and sweaty black man emotion testifying throughout.
This is one I just don’t want to get out of my head:
