Electrophonic Beats, Dubby Mixes & Black Underground Flavas

In 2004, during Suss’d’s tenure of the classic Salsoul label, Ian Dewhirst approached me about the possibility of putting together a Salsoul ‘Flavas’ compilation, reflecting the more electronic side of the labels output during the early 80’s – the type of stuff I would have been playing on the black scene during the Electro-Funk era.

Focusing on Aug ‘81 – Dec ’83, the period I was at Legend in Manchester, I went through my old record lists and came up with the following:

Full Tracklisting

Aurra / Such A Feeling (pt 2&3) / Shep Pettibone Mix
Rafael Cameron / Boogie’s Gonna Get Ya (Instrumental) / François Kevorkian Mix
Weeks & Co / If You’re Looking For Fun (Dub) / Shep Pettibone Mix
Vaughan Mason / You Can Do It (Instrumental)
Sly Cabell / Feelin’ Fine (Club Version) / Shep Pettibone Mix
Leroy Burgess / Heartbreaker / Shep Pettibone Mix
Instant Funk / (Just Because) You’ll Be Mine (Extended) / Shep Pettibone Mix
Edwin Birdsong / She’s Wrapped Up Tight (Extended)
The Jammers / And You Know That (dub) / Shep Pettibone Mix
Aurra / Baby love (Instrumental) / Shep Pettibone Mix

(unmixed continuos stream of compliation is available at the bottom of this post)

I liked the fact that the album would also serve as a tribute to one of the great remixers of the period, Shep Pettibone, who worked his magic on no less than 7 of the tracks I selected. It was a solid groove packed compilation that documented not only the Salsoul tracks that I was playing back then, but the precise mixes. Often, with retrospective dance compilations, a vocal mix will be used, whereas it might have been the dub or instrumental that was the club choice. In this way some comps fall short of being as definitive as they could be, which is always an important consideration in my book. With the exception of ‘Heartbreaker’ by Leroy Burgess, none of the selections were the lead versions of the tracks. This was reflective of the way things were back then, with the more interesting / creative mixes often appearing as secondary versions. It was a wonderful time for the remix, with people like Pettibone, Tee Scott, Larry Levan, Jellybean Benitez and François Kevorkian experimenting with a dubbier approach, which perfectly suited the audience I was playing to. With this in mind, the title was to be ‘Electrophonic Beats, Dubby Mixes & Black Underground Flavas’.

However, the fact that the majority of these tracks (although not these mixes) had appeared on previous Suss’d Salsoul compilations, made the company nervous. Concerned that they might be accused of repetition, they decided to switch their attention to another, untapped, section of the back catalogue, coming up with ‘Disco Trance & Cosmic Flavas’, which was released instead. Although I had nothing to do with the selection of tracks for this album, I re-edited 2 of them – ‘War Dance’ by Kebekelektrik and MC Lane Explosion’s ‘Oxygene’.

This would turn out to be the final release in the ‘Flavas’ series, the licensing agreement between Suss’d and Salsoul coming to an end soon after. So, sadly for me, ‘Electrophonic Beats’ never got to see the light of day’.

More recently I copied off the demo CD of this unreleased comp for Cosmic Boogie’s Stu Robinson. It was right up his street, as they say, and he asked if I minded him uploading onto the site, to sit alongside my ‘Renaissance Mixes’, which are also hosted there.

So here it is, just as I put it together at the time (apologies for the crackles on some of the tracks, we never got to the stage where we try to locate clean copies for mastering). Hopefully it’ll help illustrate this other, lesser-known side of Salsoul, which is often overshadowed by the label’s earlier years and its pioneering mixes by Tom Moulton, Walter Gibbons and Larry Levan. It would have been nice to see this as a proper compilation, available in the shops, but sharing it online provides some level of consolation. Hope you enjoy.

 

 Full Compilation: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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