Doctor's Cat - Feel The Drive

ART 1016
I miss hearing this song on the radio.  Feel the Drive was all over Chicago when it came out and this record was the first import I ever bought. To me, in 1983, this music really sounded like the future.  Finding out that the song was from Italy only made sense to me at the time.  Americans for the most part weren’t making music like this and wouldn’t be for a few more years at least.  Italian (and Dutch) imports really set the stage for the development of House music in Chicago.

Imports like these were the some of the first examples of all-electronic music that I had ever heard.  American dance music at this time had synths and electronic drums but they still tended to include guitar and bass (Arthur Baker and Afrika Bambatta were execptions).  Italo didn’t use synthesizers to emulate real instruments; it used them on their own terms for their own reasons.   It’s interesting to note that, at least in Chicago, Italian and Dutch imports were at their height of popularity around 1983-1985.  Once local producers started making music like this, demand for European labels fell off (except for labels like Rams Horn that pressed re-releases of older American Disco).

Feel the Drive is pretty typical of the Italo songs that got heavy rotation in Chicago.  Hypnotic bassline, conga driven drums, and female vocals singing pretty much nonsense lyrics.  In a lot of cases the instrumental versions of these tracks got more play but not in this case.  Feel the Drive’s vocal version got equal airtime.  About a year or so later, Doctor’s Cat scored another Chicago hit with Watch Out.  I have no idea if these songs or the group Doctor’s Cat were big elsewhere.  The only Americans I’ve met who know the group are from Chicago.  Same goes for a lot of the big Italo hits of the time.  I’ve often wondered how it was that some tracks became such huge hits in this city.  Did a couple of DJ’s have a good connection to Italian labels like il disc 8 and Memory Records?  Was it driven more by the buyers from the big retail players (Importes, Etc., Rose Records)?  I was too young to know but I did know that this music was the shit.

Track List

Side A
Feel The Drive (Vocal)

Side B
Feel The Drive (Instrumental)

Side A&B

Montana Sextet - Heavy Vibes

PSW 10482
Vince Montana was old school even back in Disco’s heyday.  Born in 1928 in south Philadelphia, he began playing vibes and other percussion at an early age and at sixteen was playing in local jazz clubs reportedly sharing stages with the likes of Charlie “Bird” Parker and Sarah Vaughn.  By the early sixties, Montana was an established and sought after session player who recorded with scores if not hundreds of artists.  None of this really matters to the House fan.  What matters is that Vincent Montana ended up at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, the headquarters of superstar writing team Gamble and Huff and home of the “Philly Sound”. 

It was here that Montana helped form the basis of what would become known as Disco.  He was part of the pool of studio musicians at Sigma who were known collectively as MFSB.  This ensemble provided the backing for many hit acts including Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, The O’Jays, The Spinners, and The Stylistics to name a few.  In 1974, under their own name, MFSB recorded T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia) which became a number 1 hit and the long running theme song for the influential musical television series Soul Train.

Eventually differences with Gamble and Huff led much of the group to relocate to Salsoul Records and form the Salsoul Orchestra.  Much like MFSB, this group recorded backing tracks as the house band for the label in addition to recording under their own name.  Many hits produced by both MFSB and The Salsoul Orchestra carried over into the House era in Chicago, most notably, Love is the Message.  This song was a hit for MFSB and the Salsoul Orchestra produced a similar song with vocals called Ooh I Love It.  Both versions (actually many different versions with varied titles eventually appeared) were staples in early House sets.  The Salsoul version was sampled by Madonna for her 1990 hit Vogue.

Vince Montana continued recording with the Salsoul Orchestra while also branching out on his own.  Under the name Montana  as well as the Montana Sextet, he had his own success on dance music scene.  Heavy Vibes is probably his best known perhaps because it shares some musical similarities with Love is the Message/Ooh I Love it.  This version (on Montana’s own Philly Sound Works label) also includes the novelty song No Football No More which places tongue in cheek lyrics about the 1982 NFL players strike over an edited version of Heavy Vibes.

 
Track List

Side A
Heavy Vibes
No Football No More

Side B
Heavy Vibes (Club Mix) 

Side A&B 

Fingers, Inc. - It's Over

UN - 110

A perfect example of how the last post’s song wound up all over early Chicago house is this track by Fingers Inc.  Although the prominent bassline and keyboard riff were taken directly from the First Choice original, this song is not simply influenced by Let No Man Put Asunder nor is it a cover version.  It’s more of an “answer song” directed at the woman in the original song.  Answer songs (extremely popular in the 60’s) had a brief resurgence in underground music in the mid eighties beginning with the Roxanne Wars in NY Hip Hop which began in 1984.  This song was released in 1985 but like many Chicago releases of this period, it had a lot of play in clubs long prior to ever being pressed.

Fingers Inc. was a loose group of artists typically including Robert Owens or Ron Wilson but centered around keyboardist/producer Larry Heard.  The vocalist here is Robert Owens who was responsible for several other big hits from the period including Bring Down the Walls and I’ll Be Your Friend.  He recorded under his own name as well as with various groups.

Likewise, Larry Heard’s prolific output was released under a variety of names: Fingers Inc., Mr. Fingers, Fingers, The It, and even simply Larry Heard.  As time went on Larry’s “Fingers” persona produced more and more instrumental music but much of his early stuff is like this record with soulful male vocals and production focused on melody in contrast to other artists’ tracks of the time focused on rhythm.  That’s not to say he didn’t know how to produce a great beat!  While Heard was certainly capable of rocking the house (the acid-influenced Washing Machine was HUGE as was Mystery of Love), he was probably better known for his ethereal and hypnotic synth arrangements (Beyond the Clouds, What About This Love).  The It's-Over versions on this record's B-side give a hint of the densely layered and soulful synths that would become Larry Heard's trademark in time.

Larry Heard was a frequent collaborator and produced tracks for artists on almost every Chicago label.  Unlike many of his contemporaries from the mid-eighties Chicago House scene, Larry Heard continued to produce and release music on a consistent basis into the new century.   His output has slowed since 2005 but he continues to pop up and his tracks continue to make it onto playlists.

Track List
Side A
It's Over (Dub)
It's Over

Side B
All-Over
All-Over (Accapella)
All-Over (Dub)

Side A&B 

First Choice - Let No Man Put Asunder

SG 397

Right up there with James Brown’s Funky Drummer and the Amen break, this song is one of the most sampled in dance music history.  It became a hit in its original form and by the early 80’s, found its way on every Chicago DJ’s playlist.  The easy availability of its acappella version allowed it be reused and remixed with other songs live.  As more and more instrumental-only house tracks were created by DJs, this acappella ended up becoming the de-facto lyric sheet of an entire genre.  I would bet that just about any Chicagoan who listened to WBMX from 1981-1990 can still recite the spoken “rap” from the end of this song almost verbatim.  “Honey let me tell you something…”

The influence this song had on the development of House music cannot be overstated.  Just as Afrika Bambatta and Arthur Baker borrowed from Kraftwerk to produce Planet Rock in this time before music sampling was commonplace, early house music producers had a penchant for taking bits from their favorite tracks and simply replaying them.  Thus, the bassline from this song’s chorus found its way onto many DJ’s musical compositions, both officially released records and privately traded tracks.  Most notably, this bassline became the driving motif for Steve “Silk” Hurley’s Jack Your Body, the first House record to reach #1 on the UK charts.  Likewise, the distinctive synth/stings progression from the intro entered the common musical vocabulary of early house.  In addition to the music’s influence, Rochelle Fleming’s vocal delivery became the benchmark for House diva’s, both male and female, for years.

Let No Man Put Asunder was released in 1977 as the first single from the album Delusions on the Gold Mind label (distributed by Salsoul).  This was the third album by First Choice (Rochelle Fleming, Joyce Jones, and Annette Guest) who began their musical career in the early 70’s as a Philly Soul group.  Over the years, many different versions of the tune were release on Salsoul, Rams Horn, and a few smaller, semi-legit labels.  The versions here are from a Salsoul single released around 1983.  One side has been remixed by Shep Pettibone from NYC’s KISS FM and the other by Frankie Knuckles, the NYC to Chicago transplant who opened the legendary club Warehouse from which the name House music is derived.  This single still has 1977 printed on the label but this date is erroneous.

 

First Choice also had several other hits that became Chicago House staples, Dr. Love, Double Cross, and Love Thang.  The group officially disbanded in 1984 but Rochelle Fleming has continued to record as a solo artist and appear as guest vocalist for other House music artists.

Track List

Side A - A Shep Pettibone Mix for Mastermix Productions

1. Let No Man Put Asunder (vocal)

2. Let No Man Put Asunder (instrumental)

3. Let No Man Put Asunder (acappella)

Side B - Mix by Frankie Knuckles

4. Let No Man Put Asunder (vocal)

5. Let No Man Put Asunder (instrumental) 

Side A&B