NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A SOUL WEEKENDER
I had a look in HMV the other day, and there's a brand new "80s soul weekender" CD out. I have a few of these collections already.
On taking a look at the track listings, it all seemed just a little too familiar. Rufus and Chaka Khan – Ain't Nobody. Yes, great tune, certainly a classic, but doesn't it feature on every 80s soul CD ever made? Candi Staton – Young Hearts. Maybe just a tad overplayed? Earth Wind & Fire – Boogie Wonderland. Haven't we had that one a few times too many? The O'Jays – I Love Music. Did The O'Jays actually record any other tracks? I'm fairly sure they did…
I don't deny the quality of any of these tunes. But can someone tell me precisely why do we have to have the same two dozen tracks on every single 80s soul collection, just in a different order each time?
The situation is even worse if you turn on to one of the mainstream radio soul shows. If you are so inclined (and I choose not to be) and tune into, say, Heart 106.2, or perhaps Smooth FM, you can have the joyful experience of hearing the very same 24 tracks being played at various times during the week, over and over. Presumably as the station's hard drive picks them at random from this Weekender CD. Or perhaps from one of the other CDs entitled "80s soul" or "soul weekender", which contain all the same tracks anyway, but just makes it easier for the hard drive to put them in a different order. You can guarantee it's the Heart 106.2 listeners who buy these collection CDs; as if they haven't had their fill of Ladies Night.
"Can someone tell me precisely why do we have to have the same two dozen tracks on every single 80s soul collection, just in a different order each time?"
Take the Chaka Khan track. Instead of Ain't Nobody, how about a different Rufus track for a change? What about perhaps Live In Me? Or Do You Love What You Feel? I'm not saying these are better tracks – it's all a matter of taste, after all, it's not a competition. But these less popular tracks are undoubtedly great tracks and, more importantly, different tracks.
What about if, instead of Candi Staton, we had Candy by Cameo? Earth Wind & Fire – jeepers, why do we have to have Boogie Wonderland every single time? EWF has a back catalogue to envy the Beatles for Heaven's sake. The O'Jays: please can we have Extraordinary Girl, or Summer Fling, or Put Our Heads Together? And why not slip in a couple of little-heard classics in there too? How about The Two Tons [of Fun] - Never Like This? Or Logg - I Know You Will? Or Norman Connors - Take It To The Limit ?
RADIO HUMDRUM If you in fact time-travel back to the Eighties and examine those weekends of soul, yes, many of us Londoners were filling them with Oops Upside Your Head and Jump To The Beat. Many forget that, for a short while, Radio London decided it fancied itself as a soul music station. Tony Blackburn served up plenty of it in the mornings; there were a couple of hours off for a phone-in (rather ironically, presented by the station's finest Soul DJ, Robbie Vincent), then Suzie Barnes took up the baton with more soul; Dave Pearce played even more soul music into the evenings and Jeff Young played more soul still at the weekends. In fact, one of the only shows not playing much soul was Black London.
Even the groove-diluted BBC soul vaults were filled with more than just the chosen 24 tracks we are force fed these days. Yet, in true mainstream fashion, inevitably it was still just a same handful of "popular" tracks that the BBC played. And play they did. Day in, day out, over and over. And over, and over. Sounds familiar, Heart 106.2 fans?
Simple fact: if it isn't played, you ain't gonna hear it. So you can't really blame those current compilation producers for giving us the same old same old. If those execs didn't live in London in their youth, their soul education probably came courtesy of Bruno Brooks, Dave Lee Travis or the Radio 1 Chart Show. So we should perhaps be grateful that the soul CD manufacturers at least managed to pick up on Patrice Rushen's Forget Me Nots (on the last count, features on 372 Soul Weekender CDs).
But this wasn't what London deserved. A generation that grew up with Robbie Vincent legendary Saturday show, Greg Edwards' amazing Soul Spectrum and the StreetSounds collections wanted more than this paltry offering.
And we got it. And how.
> DISCO SPECTRUM 2
VARIOUS ARTISTS Proving that you can put together an incredible disco CD with not a single cliche, Joey Negro presents some of the very best disco tunes ever made. A compilation lesson to the rest!
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LONDON WEEKEND RADIO Anyone who has a half decent vinyl collection these days, which includes the likes of the Bar Kays, Leroy Hutson, Leon Ware and Dee Dee Bridgewater, might well have been drugged by the rare groove haze that wafted through the London streets like a chemical released in an episode of 24. The BBC didn't conjure up this magic. Greg and Robbie didn't have the alchemistic powers to cause all this on their own. It was the combined wizardry of these fine fellows and those dedicated souls who were casting the magical spell of street-radio.
There were plenty of sources of this sorcery. In the late 80s you could find on the FM dial as many fine street-radio stations as We Are Family now appears on 80s Soul CDs. These soul weekender stations didn't always play Rappers Delight and Sexual Healing; they played Passion Play and Sanctified Lady. And then next time they played Sugar Hill or Gaye it was Lover in You and What's Happening Brother. And the next time probably some ultra rare Master Gee or Marvin recording that no one had heard before, but suddenly everyone wanted to own.
Kiss 94fm gets all the credit these days, but (for me at least), the Push FM of its day was LWR. Founded in 1982 by Johnny Haywood and Keith Green, it survived right through to the 90s. LWR, like Kiss 94fm then and Push FM now, had an amazing line up of talented, passionate individuals. Of these, two stand out, for different reasons: Ron Tom and Steve Edwards.
RON TOM Ron Tom was a
powerhouse of a broadcaster. Part responsible for the station's very existence,
he had an on-air presence, knowledge of music and charisma that not only engaged and entertained but also subliminally educated the listener (the selections were spot on every time, so much so that you'd find yourself unexplainably in Our Price hunting down the O'Bryan lp in the £4.99 rack – and finding it, too). This is also a man who managed to persuade Roy Ayers to do a live on air phone in with every single LWR DJ present!
Yet what the public loved most about Ron was that he played tracks like Chocolate Milk's Action Speaks Louder Than Words; Universal Robot Band's Funky Tambourine; Juicy's After Loving You (Juicy was the group responsible for the classic Sugar Free, so often confused with Mtume's Juicy Fruit).
"If those execs didn't live in London in their youth, their soul education probably came courtesy of Bruno Brooks, Dave Lee Travis or the Radio 1 Chart Show"
HEAVY ON THE MURDER MUSIC Take a listen to the sound clip here as Ron excitedly looks forward to a musically prosperous 1987. Curtis Hairston is predicted as one of the big potential artists for the New Year. If you don't recall Curtis, he was the voice behind all the big BB&Q hits (Dreamer, Genie, On The Shelf), and his 1987 album was nothing less than a sensation. But have you heard from him since? Vandross's See Me was Ron Tom's definitive track of 1986. But 20 years later, does this one ever get played these days? Perhaps Mr 80s Soul Compilation Producer could replace Never Too Much just once?
As Ron lines up a Johnny Hammond track, he proclaims "underground pressure at its best". Yet to this day, you'll only hear such a track on an underground station like Push FM.
It needn't be this way, though.
But perhaps what impresses most is the way in which he enthuses about his music and connects with his audience. No text messages, no chatroom, no message board, no email. But he still manages to read out half a dozen dedications and take care of all the requests (how? By pager, of course).
"Kickin' kickin' kickin' kickin' it", as he put it so accurately.
Outstanding radio.
> GEARS
JOHNNY HAMMOND Legendary keyboard player's definitive 1975 album featuring the finest musicians from the jazz funk era. Just an incredible album from start to finish, still receiving airplay courtesy of Push FM.
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"I still have the list of items from his show that I want to buy. That is, if I could ever find them and had a few hundred pounds to spare"
STEVE EDWARDS Steve Edwards was a man with an agenda: to provide the greatest jazz show on air. And he did just this. But this wasn't pretentious Radio 3 highbrow jazz or pathetic Smooth FM softy jazz. This was pure, soulful, funky jazz. Jazz from Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Dexter Wansell and so many more. Jazz with a mix of soulful voices, from the likes of Shirley Jones, Al Jarreau and The Winans. This was no bedroom, part-time DJ; this was a man with a huge collection of vinyl masterpieces that he was keen to share with London (and the surrounding counties). The show was labelled "an education in good music". It was precisely that. Steve knew what he liked and knew what the public would like. The tracks he played were possibly only ever aired on the few occasions he played them. I still have the list of items from his show that I want to buy. That is, if I could ever find them and had a few hundred pounds to spare.
Both of these LWR presenters went on to bigger, if not necessarily better, things. But Ron and Steve were just two of many, many talented deejays.
LWR's management even offered heaps of them for hire, courtesy of Midas Media: fancy a bit of soul and funk? Then Wayne Turner or Scully from the Boogie Bunch was your man. Like your funk? How about Barry B or Yommie from the Funk Force? Into your lover's rock? How about Fuzzy Dee or Daddy Ernie from the Reggae Squad? LWR offered up focused DJ teams who could provide all of your function's musical needs, while spreading the musical gospel far and wide and well beyond ninety-two point five fm.
LWR: THE LINE-UP
The line-up was impressive: DJ "names" such as Tim Westwood, Ron Tom and Barry B all appeared on the station. But take a look at the LWR Roll of honour, and there were so many brilliant dj's on the station. Here's a list of some of them:
Jigs, Angie LeMar, Camilla, Karl Kox, Shads, Scully the "Jive Master", Steve Edwards, Daddy Ernie, Yommie, Zak, Jasper "the Vinyl Junkie", Jay J, Fuzzy Dee, Cliff Ringwood, Jazzy M, Steve M, Richard Taylor, Trevor St Francis, Steady Eddie, Tony Bevans, Shay, Addie, Dessie D, DJ Elaine.
If any of you are out there (or if you used to be on LWR and we missed you off) please get in touch!
SIMPLY WICKED I have a vivid, wonderful memory of revising for my maths O-levels in June of 86, tuned in to LWR92.5 as Luther Vandross's fine, sweet voice on My Sensitivity filtered through the speakers of my Sony portable. I was blown away by such an amazing tune. How do you top this? Next track lined up on the turntable was Kool and the Gang's Summer Madness (although I didn't know that at the time). What is this amazing sound? Then a track called Games from the "new" Frederick album.
Wow. It was, as the jingle used to announce, "simply wicked".
The clothes were Farah, Tacchini and Kappa. The cars were Escort RS Turbo, Audi Coupe and Golf GTI 16v. The TV was Moonlighting, LA Law and Cheers. The clubs were Crackers, Mingles and Trends. The radio was LWR 92.5fm.
I HEAR MUSIC IN THE STREETS When the LWR transmitters were closed down, and all that talent went its separate ways, the raw passion for rare records and availability of quality, new soul also seemed to switch off overnight. Was this mere co-incidence? Was it my arse!
It's no coincidence that the musical preferences of a generation were shaped by the likes of Steve Edwards, Ron Tom and Trevor C, on stations such as LWR and Solar FM.
"The kids today might think that the 80s soul weekender scene consisted of worn out old tunes by Gloria Gaynor & McFadden & Whitehead. But it was so very much more than that"
Close off access to the great radio pioneers and how does all the musical knowledge transfer down the generations? The kids today might think that the 80s soul weekender scene consisted of worn out old tunes by Gloria Gaynor and McFadden and Whitehead. But it was so very much more than that.
And it's all still out there, as long as you know where to look.
108fm is as good a starting place as any these days. Thank heavens for the likes of Trevor C, Marky Mark, Steve KIW, Martin Lodge, Sole Intent, Rosko and Dr Marrese - and the rest of the the Push FM team - who dedicate their time and efforts to provide us with some real weekend music.
Push FM gives us some hope for the 00's soul weekender CDs, on sale in all good record shops in about 20 years.
Radiocafé in conjunction with Push FM
June 2006 In the next edition of Back In The Days, we focus on the living legends of the good music cause: Robbie, Norman, Trevor and Greg.
> DESTINATION: BOOGIE
Joey Negro and Sean P Take a listen for yourselves and hear some of the golden nuggets that Joey Negro and Sean P have uncovered for a new generation. Everything a 80s soul CD should be. .
