My favorite album of 1979 is The short turbulent history of the band includes the tragic story of Bobby DeBarge who also went on to become the lead singer of his family's group also called DeBarge.
According to Prince, he was just trying to appease his overseers from the record label before asserting his full, contractual artistic control.
Here's one guy who had the Chic sound down and made a name for himself with it; Narada Michael Walden Walden started out as a jazz-fusion drummer. I don't know the full story, but i'm willing to bet that after a few low-charting albums on Atlantic, the suits came down on him to produce some hits. He started doing this in 1978, but hit paydirt in 1979 when he released his "The Dance Of Life" album in late 1979. He copped the Chic sound complete with that Nile guitar, slappin' bass, handclaps, and and horn section. This clip is not the full single version. It fades too early, but I wanted a performance video. I Should've Have Loved Ya - Narada Michael Walden Narada Michael Walden went on to produce big hits by George Benson, Angela Bofil, Mariah Carey...better yet, check out the guy's resume. And, he's still making excellent albums. His "2013 Thunder" album is heavily rock-flavored, and one of my favorites.
Hmmm...never thought of it that way, but, from this second album, you're right. Starting with their third album, they were as good as Debarge at that point. Founder Greg Williams would probably take my head off for that!
Mr. Brown did have a minor hit in '79 with something called "It's Too Funky In Here." Was billing himself as "The Original Disco Man" at this point, but by then he was having others do the proverbial driving (in this case, Brad Shapiro). But by then he had all but burnt his bridges with Polydor, and would be with that label for one more year after this. People Records was all but kaput by 1976. As to JB's continuing ties with Starday/King while starting out with Polydor, we had a similar situation in 1979: Barry White, cutting two final albums for 20th Century-Fox (I Love To Sing The Songs I Sing and The Love Unlimited Orchestra's Super Movie Themes - Just A Little Bit Different - from what I read in a recent bio entitled White Music, the latter especially was delivered basically as a f'u gesture to 20th Century-Fox honcho Dennis Stanfill with whom he had a running feud) while starting out with his own Unlimited Gold label (with The Message Is Love whose chart peak, though very weak, was certified gold caliber compared with all that followed over the next few years and, indeed, over the whole of the next decade for him). By then most of America had lost interest in his particular grooves (which seemed to sound more like locked grooves).
It's time to start the 80s! New decade of R&B music. To start off, I present: Rock With You - Michael Jackson Week ending January 5, 1980 6 weeks!
That one, I much prefer the mix with the handclaps every fourth beat on the chorus, and the claves on the bridge and instrumental break. Unfortunately, when CD's first came out in 1982, the pressings of that format of Off The Wall had neither on this track. I presume that handclap- and claves-less mix was the original, before they fixed it?
The first pressings/release of the vinyl/cassette/8-track had the original mixes sans the handclaps. The subsequent LP pressings had the remixes. When the Japanese issued the album, they used the original version. After that, all releases, including the Mastersound vinyl and cassettes, and the CDs had the handclaps. I hate the version with the handclaps, as my first exposure to the song (and "Get On The Floor") was the original pressing without the handclaps.
I'm the reverse; I think it sounds rather empty without the chorus handclaps and the bridge/instrumental section claves. All has to do with what one's exposed to first, I guess. And I was exposed to the 45 edit (which halved the instrumental break) first.
Well, there you go! I would say for most of us, most of the time, the first version you hear is the one you prefer.
I wasn't a huge MJ fan, but I did like this one, handclaps and all. Quincy working his magic here. Unlike the pop charts, where the first two #1s of the '80s aren't especially indicative of that decade's music, the R&B charts nailed it with their first #1. This guy would dominate '80s pop the way The Bee Gees dominated the '70s.
Japan no doubt had good copies of the tapes or the master tapes, and they have a distinction for doing whatever the hell they want.
Next: The Second Time Around - Shalamar Week ending February 16, 1980 1wk Introducing: Howard Hewitt, Jody Watley, and Jeffery Daniels These three have had previous singles like "Uptown Festival", but this one has their first bona fide hit. Though this is the single version that hit the top, and charted in the top 10 on the pop chart, the version that got a lot of play on the radio was the album/12" version which was a different mix and ran over seven minutes. There is also a third mix that sometimes shows up on CD comps that has a louder "four on the floor" kick bass drum, and more staccato horns added.
I have heard the single and the 12" versions on the radio. No doubt not to be confused with Frank Sinatra's first single (of the same title) for his own Reprise label in 1960-61. I thought it was gutsy for the writers of this one to put it out without a distinguishing subtitle. I seem also to remember another mix, whether single or not, which had strings mixed in on the instrumental bridge, while other mixes didn't.
We'd be hearing a lot more from the lady in this lineup later in the decade. Always loved this song, that piano plinking thru the mix and those string washes layered over it really brightened it up. Great vocals, good Chic-esque beat, and they even threw in "Ring My Bell" synth boops for good measure. What's not to like?
My older sister had the "Uptown Festival" album, but this is the album that made me sit up and take notice. We will soon talk about another hit-making group on the Solar label. Leon Sylvers III was making himself indispensable at the label. He wrote and produced the lion's share of that labels output for the next four years.
More crickets? What's up peeps? No one likes "The Second Time Around"? It was a big hit back then, very popular, and hit #8 the top 10 on the pop chart, too. Next song: Special Lady - Ray, Goodman & Brown Week ending February 26, 1980 1 wk.
I sure did enjoy "The Second Time Around" . . . we and @sunspot42 are probably the only ones to have come out and said it. As for . . . . . . I prefer the mix with the banter in-between the acappella presentation of the chorus at the start (as heard in that video). (Some mixes didn't have such crosstalk.) The 45 I have does have the talking in-between . . . B.T.W., they were known as Ray, Goodman & Brown here for legal reasons - their old label had retained the rights to the name by which they recorded there, The Moments . . . And as for one of the lines leading up to the chorus - I thought they sang, "Plop, plop went the weasel" - as if that said furry animal were Alka-Seltzer . . .
Yes, indeed. So, what happened to everyone else? Did they stop listening to R&B once disco started to fade away? Perhaps this is why so few people remember or know about the upcoming two years of R&B music. So does the LP. The version without the studio banter is the radio mix. Yes. That label would be Sylvia and Joe Robinson's Stang/Vibration label, which by now had become Sugarhill Records. They seemed to disappear in the late 70s. The last major single they had was way back in 1970 with "Love On A Two-Way Street", and the last one I knew about was a group duet with a group called The Whatnauts. That song is "Girls" that I remember they preformed on Soul Train".
Those I do remember from the two-year interval, well . . . it may well be the same dichotomy as the 1978-79 period where what I remembered was way different from what topped the charts . . . and of course, to survive disco had to adopt a series of euphemisms. "Dance music" and "Hi-NRG" being among them . . . but that's a little ahead in the timeline, so . . . "Sexy Mama," from 1973-74, was a pretty big R&B hit, from what I can recall . . . an edited version turned up on a K-tel compilation LP of the time, Dynamic Sound (TU 235). Anyway . . .
