lundi 11 octobre 2010

Freedom Williams - Groove Your Mind (1993)

So let's finish off the Freedom Williams story. If his previous single "Voice of Freedom" had got to no. 4 in the club charts, it only reached no. 74 in the Billboard charts, decidedly short of the success C&C had seen. The follow-up single, "Groove Your Mind" (a terrible name for a song, to be sure), showed that Freedom's career was nosediving fast, reaching only no. 33 on the club charts, a very poor show indeed.

Strangely though, it's not a bad track, although once again very obviously a Masters At Work production with a bit of silly rap attached. This time, Freedom's impressive flow - often so fast that you can't even make out what he's saying, not necessarily a bad thing - comes from the fact that the original was at a standard rap tempo and pitched to become a house track. This time though there's no Michael Watford, no India, and the song's definitely less catchy for a mainstream audience.

Nevertheless, Masters at Work came up trumps again, with three sterling mixes, and because of its lesser success, the song is much less well known than "Voice of Freedom". I decided to put the vocal and the dub together (even if the latter is more or less an instrumental of the former) and add on another dub at the end. Although then elements are basically the same, there's always something to keep your interest, and the fact that Freedom's rap only lasts a few minutes (out of the 19 minutes of my mix) is a bonus. Have a listen:



Once again, the track isn't available any more, so I don't feel bad about putting it up here, and although Freedom is still doing the rounds (with dodgy dance tracks), "Groove Your Mind" was his last decent single. The accompanying album in 1993 bombed. Big time. With a career essentially lasting just less than five years, from Nu Groove to C&C, his was a stellar rise and fall. As the man himself says, "being famous is easy, being a star... is a bitch". At least he doesn't have that to worry about any more.

2 commentaires:

Mark S a dit…

This track is a new one on me, first time i hear it & love it. Some nice moody keys on Groove Your Mind. And those backing vocalists really lift this one up.

Both of your Freedom Williams edits are appreciated here!
:-)

Jason Fist a dit…

Yeah, I was surprised to have never heard it before either.

And I keep re-listening to these two edits. Love 'em!

Thanks for the feedback.