Aretha Frank1yn - A Deeper Love (1994)

In 1994, after a lengthy and fine career, Aretha Franklin was on the decline. Robert Clivillés and David Cole however were at their prime. At the time, dance was hot, soul was not. With hindsight, it seems only logical that the latter would be hired to come to the aid of the former.

Surprisingly, it wasn't a new song that Aretha was to sing, but a cover version of a Clivilles & Cole song that had already had its share of success in 1991, "A Deeper Love". The dance crowd knew it well already, but Aretha's fans probably had no idea that this was an old track being given a second lease of life.

Although the C&C mixes of the two recordings of A Deeper Love are well known (pretty much legendary even) I didn't realise at the time that there was also a CD-single of Morales mixes released after the main ones. Even after having discovering them on the Finest Def Mix blog, I wasn't immediately bowled over.

A year on, it finally dawned on me that the lesser known Morales mixes are at least as worthy of praise as the C&C mixes. It can't be easy trying to breathe new life into the second recording of a track that has already been definitively remixed every which way.

I found a copy of the CD-single on the web, and decided to make my own long version by fusing three mixes together. At the time, I didn't realise exactly how long it would be - over 22 minutes!

I really extended the bonus beats at the beginning (there's isn't even a kick until two minutes in) and there's no trace of Aretha until the four-minute mark. I like the idea of the track starting off like some sort of unidentifiable ambient monster. The main Morales mix was already pretty long, and although the dub that I've added to the end of the vocal mix doesn't have a lot of new things to say, hopefully my extension doesn't get dull. Either way, I think my transitions between mixes are pretty elegant. Check it out for yourself.



Once again, these mixes are utterly unavailable as legal downloads, so I don't feel too bad making my take on the track available.

You can download my 22-minute version of Aretha Franklin's "A Deeper Love" (Deftramental/Bad Yard Club/Bad Yard Dub Fist fusion) (42MB) by clicking the download button on the player above.

Enjoy!

That Dead Bloke - Black or White (1992)

There have probably been endless jokes about the prescience of this track's title, coming from a man who ended up being neither black nor white. By the time it came out, Jackson was way past his best, and the message of racial tolerance had nothing new about it, and the track wasn't scared to bludgeon you over the head with it.

Although his fame was waning, the track did well, spawing some C&C remixes that I didn't take any notice of at the time. Only recently did I relisten to them and find that they were actually a lot more palatable (for me) than the original.

Bizarrely, the CD-single is now a little difficult to get hold of (at a decent price at least), but I found one on eBay and as soon it came through, I started on making my own version. In the process I was amazed to find a least six digital clicks on the Underground Club mix, inexcusable for a release by someone this famous. I checked my CD rip against a file found on the web, and both have the same clicks at the same places. It would seem that no-one listened to the track closely enough to hear them. Luckily, with today's technology, I was able to fix everything.

So my mix takes the Tribal Beats (which aren't tribal at all), the Clivillés & Cole House / Club Mix) and the Underground Club Mix, puts them all together, removes the cheesy rap and a bit of redundant repetition, and ends up being a 14-minute rollercoaster of classic C&C-style house (meaning that it's almost cheesy but actually so well programmed and constructed that "it don't matter", as MJ says). The crossover from one mix to another took a bit of tweaking, but I think it flows pretty smoothly.

Have a listen...

You can download my 14-minute version of
Black or White by That Dead Bloke
by clicking the download button on the player above.
Hope you enjoy it.

By the way, if you still miss Michael, perhaps you could buy this cat toy from Etsy.com? It's made with organic catnip and as your cat relentlessly licks MJ's much-operated nose and moonwalks round the room, it will undoubtedly bring back happy memories of dancing to Thriller in your bedroom.

Less than $8. A bargain.

Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - Let The Beat Hit 'Em (1991)

 

This has to be one of the greatest club tracks of all time, with Clivilles & Cole at their zenith, showing how effortlessly they could deal with funky rhythms or house tracks with equal genius. The production's tight, the ideas in abundance, the beats... irresistible.

Both Lisa Lisa and Clivilles & Cole were from a freestyle background. Emerging from hip-hop, freestyle would soon turn into electro and house, and being on the cusp of those worlds in a time of change certainly produced some memorable music.

Clivilles & Cole liked to do long mixes (cool!) and lots of them (extra cool!). I hadn't listened to the house mixes for quite a while, but going back to them was a pleasure, especially as there were three mixes all with different elements that I could combine into one. It's a track that knows how to take its time and always throw something new into the mix (and at 13'20", that's probably a good thing). Have a listen:



If the house mixes weren't too hard to combine, the funky mix was more or less perfect, but I couldn't resist extending it just a tiny bit too. Hard to believe that this track will soon be 20 years old. Yikes!

So here are my two mixes of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - 
Let The Beat Hit 'Em for you to download.

The house mix (L L With Love R C / Club-Dub / Paradise Garage Club mix Fist fusion) can be found here (25MB)

and the funky mix (The Brand New Super Pumped-Up C&C Vocal Club mix Fist retouch) is here (12MB).

DMC remixes from the 90s: 3 big names remixed by 3 big names

I'm not in the habit of reposting content from other blogs but I stumbled upon Dance Remix Fix the other day (thanks to the great Marshall Jefferson remixes of "I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby" by Soul Family Sensation) and the site hasn't been updated since 5th December 2008, so...

Looking through the archives, there's some interesting stuff on there, some of which is hard to find. For example, some DMC remixes that I didn't even know existed.

I never really understood how DMC worked. Getting big names to remix big tracks and not releasing the results to the public seems a little strange (not to say a large waste of money). It's certainly frustrating for those of us who love the music. So it was with a certain satisfaction that I was able to download the following tracks, ripped from CD in decent quality. Click on the names to download:
Frankie Knuckles feat. Adeva "Welcome To The Real World (Johnny Vicious remix)" is a stomping, slightly barmy affair that will not be to everyone's taste. It's certainly pretty far removed from the original and very typical of Johnny Vicious' style of that time.

Crystal Waters "100 Percent Pure Love (Danny Tenaglia mix)" is a deep house version that's half lilting, half lazy, but interesting nonetheless.

And perhaps the best of the bunch is C+C Music Factory "Do You Want To Get Funky (Junior Vasquez mix)". A harder version than the original but a good workout, with slight acid touches that complement the vocals well. Very typical of the Vasquez sound in the early nineties. Have a listen...

You can still find some of classic DMC mixes from the era to buy on the DMCworld site, but I'd never heard these ones before. Apparently these came from a CD called DMC - The Best of U.S. remixes Vol.1" (tracklisting here) but I have no idea how to buy it...

Mariah Carey - Emotions (1991) C&C mixes

I never thought of myself as a Mariah Carey fan. In fact, I always thought of Mariah Carey fans as a bit naff. She's so obviously a product that surely a music fan with taste couldn't take her seriously, right?

Well, the above notwithstanding, she did have some cracking songs (although this is no longer the case as far as I can tell), and her relationship with Clivilles & Cole and especially David Morals have harvested some classic tracks. So let's say I'm a fan of some Mariah Carey remixes, and not really mad about the busty train wreck that she's become.

There are whole blogs devoted to MC and this is not one of them, but I came across this track somewhere and - dammit - fell in love. The CD-single of the C&C remixes is very hard to find now, and I had to splurge a bit to get my hands on one. After 2 months, a missed recorded delivery and some to-ing and fro-ing to Germany and back, I finally have it and really wanted to put the vocal and the dub together.

It wasn't especially difficult, although the mastering is very different on the two mixes and I had to juggle with the volume to make one flow into the next seamlessly. I was also able to correct a master error where there was a slight flutter on one channel at one point.

The production on these tracks - as with most C&C remixes - is amazing, especially on the rhythmic elements. My fusion is 13'25" long and hopefully makes it even more enjoyable to listen to.

You can download Mariah Carey - Emotions
(C&C 12" Club N°1/Dub-Dub mix Fist fusion)
as an audiophile FLAC file here (95MB)
or an iPod-friendly AAC file here (25MB).

Pia Zadora - Heartbeat of Love (C&C mixes) - 1989

I always thought that Pia Zadora was Italian. In fact she was born to Italina/Polish parents in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1954. After a rather up and down acting career (i.e. she wasn't very good) she moved on singing, where she was more readily accepted, by the masses at least.

She was 35 in 1989 when even the singing career seemed to be faltering. Heartbeat of Love was one of her last singles (check out"Dance Out of my Head" here too, it's rather good) and she's all but disappeared for the last decade. In 2000 she looked like this, so perhaps staying hidden for a while would be a good idea?

Before disappearing, she did give us Heartbeat of Love, a distinctly average song that some bright spark at CBS thought should be remixed by Clivilles & Cole, and frankly why not? If anyone could shine this turd, they could. Their Freestyle mix is 'heavily inspired' by Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the house mix pinches bits of Lil' Louis' French Kiss, a huge hit that year. Using cheeky hooks from elsewhere was a C&C strong point.

The result isn't half bad, although Pia's weedy vocals are extremely evident at times. It is however fairly rare on CD (one copy here on amazon.com and strangely a couple here on amazon.fr if you're interested.)

So, a curiosity rather than a classic, but surely anything by Clivilles & Cole is worth a listen?

You can download Pia Zadora "Heartbreak of Love"
here (57MB)

Horace Brown"One For The Money (C&C Music Factory mix)" - 1996

Quite unlike me to listen to anything recorded after 1994... ;-) but a classic is a classic, whatever the year.

This was a an R&B smoocher in 1996, with Horace boasting about how he has risen from poverty (sub-text: thanks to his amazing TALENT) and now has a new mansion, champagne soirées, etc. etc. (thanks to his amazing TALENT). That boy. What a larf!

Nevertheless, not a half bad song. Unsurprisingly, the video (see below) is classic mid-nineties MTV-formatted posturing with lots of spontaneous synchronised dancing in black suits. Who would have thought that Clivilles & Cole could turn it into a great house number? I especially like their mix because a) they take their time (10'26") to build the thing up, and b) it's really a mix in two halves with the vocal flowing into the dub effortlessly. Classic C&C genius.

Perhaps not especially rare (apparently available on a German CD-single here through amazon.de) but I couldn't find it on any of the other blogs, so here it is! (in audiophile and iPod-friendly encodes)

Download Horace Brown "One For The Money
(C&C Music Factory mix) here (FLAC 74MB)
or there's a 256 kbps VBR AAC file here.

(If you don't know what FLAC is or what to do with it you might like to read this on Wikipedia and download rather useful program Songbird which can read almost every audio format you can throw at it and may well come in handy in the future).