Rolling thread for your recent DISCO and BOOGIE discoveries, enthusiasms and obsessions

my favorite tune from the donald byrd from the F.U.M.L. album is the closer. i listen to it for affirmation at least once a month. and one of the great walking bass lines out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7z97XfHVoY

and some more solar. i am absolutely in love lately with dynasty's "groove control." i think it's perfect in every way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgCUq0gdh0M

davey: i was going to say that i don't think i've ever even heard of state of grace before and then it turns out that lol this one is already on my discogs want list...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE8ytsuYgHg
State Of Grace - That's When We'll Be Free [Special New Mix] (1982)

and that dr togo song is sick! a nice uh chris rea vibe to that one (not an insult!) :D

when i was listening to lots of jazz as a teen, donald byrd was always way too slick sounding for me and i never really checked him out, but now every song i hear from him is just super nice, what the hell was i thinking?

and yes, dynasty have got some good stuff! the one i have is 'i don't wanna be a freak (but i can't help myself)'

oh nice milk bottle accompaniment on 'groove control'!

xxxp State of Grace is pretty good huh. I wasn't aware of their other output.

Here's another one I'd picked up recently. Not sure how obvious it is, since my knowledge of the genre isn't really deep, but it's funky as hell. It looks like there are some reasonably priced copies still on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/Steve-Watson-Born-To-Boogie-My-Little-One/release/7554675

Oh and another bomb reissue: https://www.discogs.com/Touch%C3%A9-Just-Like-A-Doorknob/release/11079663

I love how strong the vinyl reissue scene has been, lately. My theory is that Discogs is a big positive influence, since it's made it easy to quantify how many people want out-of-print releases.

when i was listening to lots of jazz as a teen, donald byrd was always way too slick sounding for me and i never really checked him out, but now every song i hear from him is just super nice, what the hell was i thinking?

Pretty much the same path we all eventually follow with jazz-funk mastercuts fodder.

Word on the street is this is gonna get another pressing: https://www.discogs.com/Kiki-Gyan-24-Hours-In-A-Disco-1978-82/release/4080563?ev=rr

*rubs hands together*

And I'm just discovering this record now through Discogs' recommendation algorithm, and it is fantastic: https://www.discogs.com/Rim-And-Kasa-Too-Tough/release/2262081?ev=rr

oh that kiki sounds great on first pass! and rim and kasa too but that might be just a tad above my pay grade. i'm mostly a charity shop disco sort tbh, so i haven't really got properly stuck into any african stuff, but keep 'em coming by all means

god the world is just full of vast amounts of incredible music isn't it?

just when you think you know stuff, you realise you were just fart-arsing about in the ante chamber the whole damn time

this is a pretty nice one that i found for like a pound or something a couple of months back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW1L9-GTOTc
Vera - Take Me To The Bridge (1980)

anyone got any veras?

and this one has become a huge favourite of mine too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhCf2L2-jww
Phyllis Hyman - You Know How To Love Me (1979)

that flute! that little thing that the guitar does every now and again! that voice!

so fucking sad reading about phyllis now though :(

one million xps. that shalamar tune is amazing, i don't think i've heard it before

an obvious one that i'll nonetheless take the opportunity to remind you all of:

the brooklyn, bronx & queens band - on the beat

dutch 80's funk from heaven:

the limit - she's so divine

played this at a house party and the chorus got my pals jumping:

chas jankel - 109 (chasanova album version)

the bassline (put headphones on if you're listening on laptop so you can hear it!) on this song, and really the way the whole intro comes together, is out of this world:

can-dee - lucky day

also gonna crosspost this Shintaro Sakamoto track i posted in the japanese boogie thread cuz its my favourite boogie discovery in like a year

'80s japanese boogie/r&b/freestyle

hey Nick, there are other editions of the Rim & Kasa record that are much cheaper & still available.

i swear i've seen that BB&Q band record. my roommate has a few of the records posted itt, probably that one's in there too.

i just got this one in the mail today, heard it first in a breakbot mix on youtube: https://www.discogs.com/Empire-2-Projecting-Lisa-Freakman/release/1419039

"She's So Divine" is one of the greatest songs ever

totally. could’ve been a mega smash hit too

I got these Rim & Kasa edits when they came out a couple of years ago. Nik Weston's Mukatsuku label reissues some great stuff. https://www.discogs.com/Nik-Weston-Presents-Rim-Kasa-Rim-Kwaku-Obeng-Mukatsuku-Vs-BBE-Official-Edits/release/8176789

I've also been playing that Phyllis Hyman track out a lot - the original, not the big new remix.

Mike, I want to THANK YOU. SO. MUCH. for that James Hamilton blog. I went all the way back to the beginning and am reading every page chronologically while listening to the tracks. Music history is unfolding before my eyes. What a goldmine.

Davey, if it's not too much trouble, could you post links to YouTube instead of Discogs?

xxp - My favorite BB&Q jam is 'Starlette':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_gG78WJYc

Some good ones from James Hamilton's first couple of months (mid-1975):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fudV-od6-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Ro0B9RETM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m48wpxFPHQU
"Instrumental flip minus groans." - LOL

And who knew Demis Roussos did disco?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzOI_IxB7NA

Sorry, 'Rendezvous' is for a different thread.

Glad you're enjoying the blog, ArchCarrier. I have made dozens and dozens of amazing discoveries through doing it, which led to me pitching a weekly Friday night gig at the bar up the road, playing a lot of the records I've recently bought. The night's going great, and is funding more purchases. Here's one I bought today - the 1980 debut single from Freeez.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6acsV353M

hey archcarrier, if you don’t know it there’s another HUGE demis disco banger called ‘I dig you’ which has this funked-up eastern med melody and big squiggly disco synths and strings. was a b-side originally I think but it’s also on the classic charity shop staple ‘the demis roussos magic’ (has a boring mauve coloured cover, looks like a shit box of chocolates)

this is 'i dig you', it's a monster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kx-lj02_z4

flopson prompted me to check out the rest of the limit's discography (didn't take long, it's only 1 album and 4 singles). had heard 'say yeah' before, think it was a minor hit over here but it doesn't really do an awful lot for me tbh. this one does sound pretty good though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvhohToyGh0

that can-dee tune is totally new to me - fucking hell, dopamine rush or what? :D

omfg, 'freakman' is an instant hit here too, thanks davey!

sounds like she's *really* enjoying that cornish pasty on that intimate strangers track

and i bought a freeez record today too! 'melodies of love' reissue came out this week, what a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3QHpUVjuK4

xxp - Wow, 'I Dig You' is indeed fantastic. I only knew Demis from Aphrodite's Child and a couple of ballads ('My Friend the Wind', 'It's Five o'Clock', both great, 'Lovely Lady of Arcadia' not so much), but I guess it makes sense to think of him as the eccentric Greek cousin of the Bee Gees.

Digging a little deeper, I see there's also this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO_lAbitUNg

I wish there was a bar down my road that would let me play disco every Friday...

ArchCarrier, this Demis Roussos edit was one of my most favorite records last year! The a-side is great as well. I saw that "L.O.V.E. Got a Hold on Me" is getting a re-issue soon, too, but it's 30 bucks for pre-order on pbvinyl.com, and that's just wrong. https://youtu.be/gU1wm4uOuow

this Demis Roussos edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU1wm4uOuow

Ooh, that's a good one!

This is the opposite of a deep cut, but I've been watching reruns of 1985 TOTP and this boogie banger is always a highlight. Had no idea they were Dutch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KyM6rCUOiM

Don't forget to check out the Dutch TopPop channel for much more Mai Tai.

On today's James Hamilton blog he mentions one of my favorite disco covers. Never fails to produce a couple of smiles in my direction whenever I play it in front of a crowd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwa2YtZRGs

(Not sure about the grammar in that last sentence but you get the idea...)

Oh cool, need to check that out!

Fabulous thread, just saw----this band may have already been mentioned, but can't resist quoting a late great ilxor, as already quoted on Amazon, re Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band s/t debut:

Disco rarely got more musically or lyrically sophisticated than on this self-titled debut album. Long before he took up the role of Kid Creole with the Coconuts, wordsmith August Darnell cushioned small, perfect truths--singer Cory Daye promises to get her "equivalency diploma" in love in "I'll Play the Fool"--in knowingly retro sounds. Stylish, honest, and completely one of a kind. --Rickey Wright
Speaking of Cory Daye, check out her solo album, Cory and Me w Dr B etc. input--the last I heard, she and a bunch of them are still performing together.

Speaking of Africa, don't miss Rough Guide To African Disco, esp, w bonus disc. Disc 1's opening track is weirdly generic, but the rest of it takes disco expectations on a trip.

Ditto this Nicky Siano comp---I'm told he hated the d-word, didn't want it on here, but Soul Jazz insisted---but disco-and-boogie is a handy tag for it---he really likes songs that tell stories that you can/have to dance to:

Siano the Times
Mercury rising as disco evolves out of its prior knowledge
by Don Allred
January 11th, 2005 2:14 PM Issue 02

Blissed-out, but not always totally
photo: Courtesy of Nicky Siano
Nicky Siano's Legendary the Gallery: New York's original disco 1973-1977
Soul Jazz import

In the early '70s, a teenage DJ named Nicky Siano traveled the space-wise
dancefloor of David Mancuso's Loft, before launching his own Gallery. (Gallery
kid Larry Levan later levitated Paradise Garage; he and Siano also worked with disco mystic Arthur Russell.) Despite acid, balloons, and
the food bar, the Gallery wasn't always totally blissed-out. As described in his CD notes, Siano's sound design, influenced by Mancuso's approach, was logically
based on and changing with the rooms and scenes he performed in as the feast
moved around NYC.
The Gallery opened in the summer of '73. Couch-potato arena rock ruled. There and elsewhere, DJs and dancers (especially blacks,
Latinos, gays) were among those, at times closely observed, who chose to carve fresh heat from the vinyl
beast. Spinning out of this disc, the Gallery is mercury still
rising, through crosstown funk, soul, and one gospel
song, personalized: Gloria Spencer proclaims, "I got it! I don't understand it! I got
it!" A jet blasts (like, "Amen!") out of Exuma's "Obeah Man." The Temptations
lay down the "Law of the Land": "You might not like who you are, but you
better start. 'Cause you sure can't be nobody else." But the music rumbles and clatters like a
roulette wheel. Meanwhile, turns out that Bonnie Bramlett's "Crazy 'Bout My
Baby" is crazy like a tambourine and a fox, shaking in wait for that slowhand
dobro.
Loleatta Holloway, Bobby Womack, Bill Withers, the Isleys,
and Undisputed Truth also make the most of prior knowledge and surprise.
Without waiting for the remix: These are original (full-length) LP tracks and
seven-inch singles. Yet great breaks burst out of (and roll through) good
grooves, good songs. Often.
Also see http://www.nickysiano.com/ and http://www.timlawrence.info/.

.

And xgau almost nailed this one:
Midnight Rhythm [Atlantic, 1979]
At last a whole disco album that actually brings off all the disco tricks--exploding out of the speakers, washing over the room, and so forth. The thump of the bass drum never dominates the rhythmic pulse, and the lyrical tag lines avoid the words "dance," "dancer," "dancing," "dancin'," and "disco"--until an orgasmic break (repeated once) that goes "Dancin', dancin', dancin', dancin'." Monofunctional but potent. A-
"almost nailed" because dunno that it was really the first, though obv. he heard more than most people, certainly me, but yeah at the time it was kind of like back when Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing At Baxter's was the first whole acid-rock album I heard that sounded like all those psychedelic posters etc. looked. . Also dunno about "monofunctional," because some of it was good for tripping as well as dancing; I had flashbacks to it when first heard Algiers.

extremely recommend that everyone in this thread follow @garageclassics on twitter; a bot that tweets discogs of paradise garage-era classics twice an hour. insanely high quality curation despite the massive volume. would be better if it were youtube links but whatever; i go every couple weeks and add a few dozen trax to a tidal playlist and jam it all week

rhyze - just how sweet is your love

rome jefferies - good love

five special - why leave us alone

same sort of vibe as this amazing song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t48Q-nhiFbg

Patris - Love Oasis

and this was today's best find in the quid bins - hadn't heard this before but the production credits for don was, john robie and todd rundgren grabbed my attention. from 1984 but has a real proto-house feel to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipxNP2subss

that's Jules - When Love Surges btw

exquisite chaz jankel-produced rarity from UK, 1986:

Rocky Winters - Vicious Circle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6muOAaO8WhE

just remembered that geraldine hunt, who sadly died last weekend, wrote and produced this masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5WmKv4OVww
Cheri - Starstruck

apparently this was pretty well known BITD but I had never heard it before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpr9qvuodVA

big ol’ hit for sure

and it slams

just remembered that geraldine hunt, who sadly died last weekend, wrote and produced this masterpiece:

📹
Cheri - Starstruck