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.
Freedom Williams (Frederick Brandon Williams) was of course Clivilles & Cole's rapper for the C&C Music Project, plus a few remixes (like their epic Grace Jones remix). The three started collaborating in late 1980s with Seduction and The Crew on Vendetta. His combination is gruff monosyllabic rapping and bulging torso made him simple to listen to and great video fodder. In an era when MTV was still developing, that was important.
However, after C&C had had their moment in the limelight, it would seem that the happy threesome fell out. Or perhaps it was their falling out that helped bring C&C to an end? Either way, Clivilles doesn't seem pleased that Freedom continued touring under the C&C name, calling it "part of the biggest insult in the world". Yep, the biggest insult IN THE WORLD. Shocking.
Frankly, I would really really like to know whose bright idea it was to launch Freedom's solo career by pairing him up with Masters At Work. Williams' raps were always more rhyming dictionary than poetry, and Masters At Work had a profile that was voluntarily much more underground than Clivilles and Cole. I suspect that after years of successful pop-dance hits, he was in search of some real credibility with the house crowd. What a terrible idea.
Back in the day, I bought Voice of Freedom on 12" for 99p, a frequent record company ploy to get artists into the charts. The vinyl sleeve was a much more sparse, graphic affair than the CD packshot with lots of Freedom flesh and Freedom muscle, so as not to frighten the club kids. Both sleeves sport the XXXX symbol (check Free's pendant), but I'd be amazed if anyone really knew what it was supposed to mean.
And who would have believed that this oddball project was to to yield one of the best Masters At Work tracks ever? Michael Watford and India on backing vocals, a bit of Martin Luther King, and four very different mixes with Masters At Work making a very obvious effort, with careful programming, beautifully crafted effects and a simple, catchy melody.
Unfortunately Freedom himself seems a little burnt out and in need of inspiration, setting down a blunt and lazy C&C-style rap over a refined NY house track. Examples:
"Wall to wall the price is high, you might meet the type of guy or type of girl who'll rock your world and trade their diamonds for their pearls, leave you standing in a daze, kicking up their sexy ways, you might have to paraphrase, what you call the better days". If anyone has any idea what that's suppose to mean, then they have my respect. But it gets better:
"All in all there is no clue, if the sex is good take two, sometimes I don't know what to do, I might explode all over you, all over you, all over you...". Seemingly saucy, but ultimately meaningless.
Freedom does have a bit of an obsession with sex though. How about this for a chat up line? "Touch me where the sun don't shine. Will you be my concubine?" Guaranteed to get your face slapped in any club.
And the positively worst part is this triple whammy of awful cliché, simplistic rhyme and just plain nonsense: "Yes I've got to have your love, you've been sent from up above, you're the one I'm thinking of, if you push me can I shove?"IT'S JUST FRACKIN' TERRIBLE.
So how does he get away with it all? Well luckily, Freedom's very sure of himself, not afraid to put on a Jamaican accent at one point (one of my pet hates) and spout some nonsense about Ramses (perhaps he has some sort of pyramid fixation).
Nevertheless, the track really is so good that it can still be enjoyed it for what it is: a classic piece of house. All four mixes have great stuff in them, and I had a lot of fun putting them together, starting with the Chant mix, leading into the Bass Hit dub (with lots of Michael Watford) which then flows into the main mix which then leads into the amazing Jazzy mix. I also extended a few sections that I thought deserved to be longer. All very very danceable stuff (but sadly not a hit for Freedom). My fusion was a little tricky to do, but it flows really well and the result is nearly 21 minutes of classic Masters At Work, plus a few minutes of silly Freedom Williams. Have a listen, and click the download button if you'd like to keep a copy for yourself because - surprise surprise - Sony isn't in a rush to make it available digitally.
P.S. This was not the last time Freedom Williams and Masters At Work were to collaborate and produce - against all odds - some great music. More on that very soon...
It is 1990. Americans Deee-Lite are huge, so marketing dictates that England needs its own version. This turns out to be Alison Moira Clarkson to play the role of Betty Boo, replete with high-pitch yank twang, comic-style shenanigans, and a rhyming dictionary absolutely full to the brim with nonsense like:
"Oh why has he disappeared, this feeling is really weird. You're precious and you're dear, can you feel the weight of these tears?" Nonsense. To her credit, she was only 20 years old at the time.
Unfortunately, after her first, very successful single "Doin' The Do", the comic value of Betty Boo wore very thin, very fast. However, her undeniable success - essentially the carbon copy of an American blueprint - made it imperative to... export her sound back to America! And so it was that Shep Pettibone came to work on "Where Are You Baby", toning down the saccharine side of the 'song', stealing a bit of Salt 'n' Pepa bassline for extra cred and finishing up with a half decent version, altogether darker with the majority of the track devoid of Boo's oh-so-amusing rap. The sleeve of the single was toned down too, with less comic-strip posing and more sultry pouting (and extra flesh).
Funnily enough though, the passing of the years has helped me reevaluate the Pettibone mixes, and I can now appreciate them as extremely well programmed, with a lot of extra punch (rather than the original, deliberate soft waddle they had in the UK versions). Have a listen!
The US CD-single is not so easy to get hold of now, so hopefully some people will appreciate finding the Pettibone vocal and dub in good quality from a CD rip (I couldn't find anyone else offering it on the web). I'm including the other US-specific mixes in the package too.
Once again (and I say it so often I don't even know why I bother any more), these mixes are now unavailable to buy. Anyway, enjoy.
Follow me, if you will, back in time, 21 years back. In 1989 Steve 'Silk' Hurley was only 27, (and just 25 years old at the time of "Jack Your Body"). His Wikipedia page calls him a one-hit wonder, which I think is hilarious, as he produced and remixed shitloads of great tracks over a couple of decades. Even if his busiest period (the nineties) is now behind him, I don't think he's going to get bored any day now.
In the late 80s, his "Work It Out" album for Atlantic was an early major label attempt to cash in on the Chicago house sound, and it spawned - or tried to spawn - a couple of singles, notably Chain of Fools with vocalist Charisse Cobb (credited as Risse). However, it would seem that the track didn't really catch on, despite the fact that it very much resembled Hurley's astonishing remix of Roberta Flack, perhaps the finest he's ever done.
12"s of Chain of Fools aren't particularly hard to find, but CDs of it are (it wasn't on Discogs, which is always a good sign, and doesn't seem to have been on any CD compilations). I managed to stumble upon a promo CD almost by accident on eBay, and it wasn't very expensive. As the back cover shows, Hurley produced, arranged, mixed and edited the track. He probably also taught Risse to sing, built the studio and invented the polio vaccine. I suppose that in those days, if you didn't big yourself up, nobody else would.
It's a shame that the CD doesn't contain the House Of Trix mix and Extended mix that are on the 12", but hopefully some people will be pleased to have the track in CD quality at last. You can listen and download below. Enjoy!
P.S. I did send a message to Mr. Hurley via Twitter to ask if he had any more info on Risse (can't find anything on the web). I'll add it if he gets back to me.
Bonus! Chain of Fools acapella (here), found on the scientician weblog, de-clicked and boosted.
It's funny how a track can do nothing for you at one point in your life, and completely blow you away at another.
Going through my old vinyl collection, I came across a 12" with this on it, and found it just amazing. Marc Kinchen was on great form in the early nineties, with a trademark sound that never got tired (although not all his mixes were at the same level), somewhere between NY house and almost-cheesy dance. His subterranean Nightcrawlers sound sparked a host of copycat records and soon his mixes became part of the blueprint of what was to become speed garage.
So this mix entirely passed me by back in 1993, and apparently the label didn't think it fit for CD release either (or not in the techno-rave sound they were pushing for Moby at the time), as it only ever featured on an American promo CD... that I found on the web and snaffled up immediately. Since then I've listened to it so much and love it to such a point that it's the only track on my iPhone in Apple Lossless, and I have a shitload of music, believe me.
The track's built out of sparse, carefully combined elements, a killer deep bassline, a few fake horn stabs and a bit of shrieking diva. It's really hypnotic, a great, jacking track that is just as devastating today, 17 years after its original release.
Have a listen and download it if you like by simply clicking the download button. Hope you love it as much as I do. So pleased to have found it on CD. And once again, there's no way to buy the track legally anywhere. Records companies are so dim sometimes...
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.
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.
