Everybody dance: Arthur Baker, MAN London, 2015
A beat aficionado chooses the tunes for a huge night
MAN London, 2015
[With the collapse of my own UK-centric magazine concept British Ideas Corporation and having left GQ, I was back on the freelance trail. And then I heard about a new magazine launch, MAN London, and offered my services. We went from nothing to printed product in five weeks. Let’s say that it wasn’t an easy time and I had no plans to work on Issue 2, but the magazine was pretty good. I took some elements of British Ideas with me, including Champion Sound – renamed here as Everybody Dance. I’d been on a trip to Moscow with DJ and erstwhile New Order producer Arthur Baker around 15 years previously, so I gave him a call.]
Your host tonight: Arthur Baker
Relight My Fire feat Loleatta Holloway (Dmitri From Paris Remix) – Dan Hartman
Appears on Back In The House, Defected, 2012
This is the ultimate classic disco anthem as written by Dan Hartman, with featured vocals by the late, great Loleatta Holloway. But Dmitri From Paris did the impossible – he actually topped the original.
Music Sounds Better With You – Stardust
Virgin, 1998
French disco-house, produced by Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk, using a killer Chaka Khan loop. HUGE, yesterday, today and tommorow.
Let’s Start The Dance – Hamilton Bohannon
Mercury, 1978
One of the oldest and most thumping tracks that I play. Prince borrowed plenty from Hamilton Bohannon – he occasionally was inspired by the man’s rhythm tracks, but this is better than Prince.
Where Love Lives – Alison Limerick
Arista, 1990
Produced and written by Lati Kronlund, who later went to form the Brooklyn Funk Essentials with me in 1993. This is probably the ultimate house anthem, as mixed by the great Frankie Knuckles and David Morales
I’m A Man – The Spencer Davis Group
Fontana, 1967
I like all the remakes of this track as well. It’s been done a lot, but Macho did a great Italian disco version in 1978. I think Steve Winwood was only 13 or 14 when he sang this, so he wasn’t really a man at all.
Mainline – Black Ivory
Buddah Records, 1979
Written by Leroy Burgess, this is really cool disco that’s been sampled many times and was a Paradise Garage fave.
Walking On Sunshine – Rockers Revenge feat Donnie Calvin
London Records, 1982
Is it OK to mention one of my own records here? It’s an early form of mash-up – I was throwing lots of elements in there, like D-Train and a few other bits. You’d go to the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan would play this – it went down well there, it worked. It sold 400,000 and went to No.3 in the UK.
Rocks – Primal Scream
Creation Records, 1994
This always gets the dance floor going – it’s got that Rolling Stones thing going on. One of my friends – could have been 2manydjs – added a booming kick to it to make it more club friendly and it always works.
You Get What You Give – New Radicals
MCA Records, 1999
If you put this on at the right time of night, it really goes off. It was a worldwide anthem and a great summer sound.
No Price – Slam Dunk’d
Sony, 2015
This is one of my own tracks. It always gets a great response and was played on Radio 1 by Annie Mac and Pete Tong quite a bit last year. It’s a track I originally recorded in 1978, but I’ve been working on the filtered disco version for six years with Al-P from MSTRKRFT and finally got the vox by Dave from Chromeo early last year. It’ll be released in August. LG