Sunday 9 April 2023

People All Over The World Join Hands, Start A Love Train

Side 1 of a mixtape recorded for Mrs. K on 21st March 2002.

No fancy sleeve for this one, just a generic TDK FE Ferric cassette sleeve with some neat, upper case lettering and a terribly punning but title, Disco? Get The Funk Out Of Here!

It does pretty much what it sets out to do, a mix of soul, funk and disco classics (mostly) from the 1970s and a nod to some of the club nights we used to go to in Bristol at the time.
 
The selection starts and (no spoilers) ends with What It Is from 1977 by Garnet Mimms & Truckin' Company, which seems to be Garnet's one and only single with the truckers, although a version also appears on Mimms' album from the same year, Garnet Mimms Has It All. It's a great song, written and produced by Jeff Lane and Randy Muller from Brass Construction.
 
I've included longer versions of classics by Curtis Mayfield, The O'Jays, Donna Summer and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes because...well, because, so the selection pushes past the original C90 side to come in at just under and hour. 
 
A couple of the songs - Bill Withers and Bobby Womack - were lifted straight from the Jackie Brown soundtrack, Womack's song also serving as the eponymous theme to 1972 film, Across 110th Street. Disco Inferno by Trammps appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the version here edited down from the album's 11 minute behemoth to a more manageable three and a half.
 
Dance Your Pants Off is, as far as I can tell, a rare Sly & The Family Stone circa 1967 that I got with a freebie CD called Hippy Chic, attached to RCD Classic Rock Collection Vol. 11, in a clearance bin in the mid-1990s. The magazine was, well, pants but the CD was worth the 30 or 40p that I paid at the time.
 
The Joe Simon song appeared on the appallingly-titled Those Boogie Knights & Disco Divas (and, looking at my mixtape effort, that's saying something), another freebie CD with the late, lamented Vox magazine in 1998. 
 
If disco makes you sick, come back here tomorrow for the cure (or should that be The Cure?)

1) What It Is (Part I) (Single Version): Garnet Mimms & Truckin' Company (1977)
2) Dance Your Pants Off: Sly & The Family Stone (1967)
3) Freddie's Dead (Full Length Version): Curtis Mayfield (1972)
4) Love Train ("A Tom Moulton Mix"): The O'Jays (1977)
5) Disco Inferno (Edit): Trammps (1976)
6) You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (Album Version): Sylvester (1978)
7) Hot Stuff (Album Version): Donna Summer (1979)
8) Feel The Need In Me: Detroit Emeralds (1971)
9) Who Is He (And What Is He To You?) (Album Version): Bill Withers (1972)
10) Get Down, Get Down (Get On The Floor): Joe Simon (1975)
11) Bad Luck (A Tom Moulton Mix): Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes (1977)
12) Across 110th Street (Part 1): Bobby Womack (1972)

Side One (55:42) (Box) (Mega)

4 comments:

  1. Segueing from a song that encourages the object of your affections to remove their pants straight into one about a drug dealer getting knocked over by a car is an unorthodox seduction technique. But it obviously worked.

    Nice selection. Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Ernie. Maybe if Freddie had been dancing instead of dealing, he wouldn't have met such an ignoble end. Bad luck, as Teddy Pendergrass says.

      I think Mrs. K would question your use of 'unorthodox' as suggesting that I had some sort of 'technique' to begin with.

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  2. I am all aboard this particular love train.
    Fantastic stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plenty of room, CC, glad to have you on board!

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