Millie Jackson - I'll Be Rolling (With The Punches)

Millie Jackson - Lovingly Yours (1976)

 Producers : Brad Shapiro, Millie Jackson
Background Vocals : Brandy, The Moments

Millie Jackson's first taste of singing in front of an audience occurred one night at the famed nightclub Smalls Paradise. Sitting in the audience with friends, Jackson heckled the lady on stage and, when dared to do better, she stepped up to belt Ben E. King's "Don't Play It No More." Jackson was hired for another gig within two weeks, but didn't get paid. A gentleman by the name of Tony Rice took her to a venue in Hoboken, NJ, a couple of weeks later and then on to Brooklyn, NY, to perform for a nominal fee.

Born in Thompson, GA, Jackson lived with her grandmother prior to moving to Newark, NJ, to live with her father in 1958. She grew up influenced by the sounds of Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, and later, the O'Jays. Her first single to chart was 1971's deceptively titled "A Child of God (It's Hard to Believe)," which many thought was a gospel track. Due to its heated lyrical content, the single was canceled, but still managed to peak at number 22 on the R&B charts. In the spring of 1972, Jackson had her first R&B Top Ten single with "Ask Me What You Want." She kept busy performing in nightclubs and enjoyed her second consecutive Top Ten single with "My Man, A Sweet Man" in August of 1972; it peaked at number seven. (Ironically, the song was not one of Jackson's favorites.)

A year later, Jackson, whose vocal texture is similar to one of her idols, Gladys Knight, had her third Top Ten single with the moderately paced "Hurts So Good," which peaked at number three on the R&B charts and made the pop Top 40. The single bore the title of her album and was also featured on the movie soundtrack for Cleopatra Jones. Jackson produced the album with Brad Shapiro. However, she was only given credit for the album concept. In Jackson's own words, "...that's when they (label owners) met the real Millie Jackson." Thereafter, she was given credit for her efforts.

In January of 1975, Jackson released the album that would introduce what would later become her trademark rap style of racy, raunchy language; her audience loved it. The album was Caught Up and the featured release was "If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Want to Be Right," for which she received two Grammy nominations. Jackson openly admits that she never had singing lessons and never thought she could sing. Consequently, she began to talk (or what was commonly known at the time as rap) on her songs in a blunt, candid manner to make up for the shortcoming and had her fourth Top Ten single with country singer Merle Haggard's "If You're Not Back in Love by Monday" (Billboard country charts number two). Jackson's version peaked at number five on the R&B charts. 

Over the next ten years, Jackson had numerous Top 100 singles for Spring Records. In 1986, she signed with Jive and released her fifth and sixth Top Ten singles in "Hot! Wild! Unrestricted! Crazy Love" and "Love Is a Dangerous Game, both respectively peaking at number nine and six on the R&B charts. In addition to her impressive music career, Jackson wrote the play Young Man, Older Woman; the play toured for four years. Her attention, though, has turned to the broadcast booth as a radio program host on the afternoon radio show in Dallas, TX. According to Billboard, Jackson is one of the top R&B acts to ever record or step onto a stage and is still giving her fans what they want as a radio host and a performer.
Source : http://www.allmusic.com/artist/millie-jackson-mn0000488859

Upcoming concerts :

Friday 03 August 2012
Millie Jackson
at 

Howard Theatre Washington, DC, US

Saturday 04 August 2012
Joey Morant Quartet & Millie Jackson
at 

B.B. King's Blues Club New York, NY, US

Download : http://www.divshare.com/download/19191352-f46

From New Wave to Electro Tech Fri. 27 at Secreto Gazi B part

From New Wave to Electro Tech Fri. 27 at Secreto Gazi A part

MICHAEL JACKSON INTERVIEW ON SOUL TRAIN

Silver Convention - Dancing In The Aisle

Silver Convention - Dancing In The Aisle

 The group was initiated in Munich by producers and songwriters Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze. The group was named after Levay, "Silver" being Levay's nickname. Kunze had in the late 1960s been a pop lyricist who wrote protest songs in German; when these tunes went out of style, he began producing pop records and commercials. Levay had developed a taste for American music while growing up in Yugoslavia, eventually becoming a music arranger and lyricist.

Using female session vocalists for their first recordings, they scored a successful single in the United Kingdom in 1975 with the song "Save Me", which peaked at #30. They were only a studio group, and realized then that they would need to find professional entertainers for presentation to the public.

They recruited vocalists Linda Thompson (real name Linda Übelherr, who would be billed on her solo records as Linda G. Thompson, formerly a member of Les Humphries Singers), Penny McLean (real name Gertrude Wirschinger) and Ramona Wulf (real name Ramona Kraft, born to a German mother and black American G.I. father). Their first production was the minor successful single named ironically "There Is Always Another Girl".

As Silver Convention they scored two major U.S. and Canadian hit singles. "Fly, Robin, Fly," of which the complete lyrics consisted of only six different words (Fly, Robin, Up, To, The, Sky), maintained three weeks at #1 in late November and early December 1975, and won the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in December 1975. Initially the song was titled "Run, Rabbit, Run", changed by the writers moments before the recording took place. 

Their next success "Get Up And Boogie", which also consisted of only six different words (Get, Up, And, Boogie, That's, Right), hit #1 in Canada on June 15, 1976,had 3 weeks at #2 in the U.S in June 1976 and also peaked at #7 in the UK, in May 1976. Their next release, "No No Joe," only scored #60 in September 1976. The further singles released by the trio attempted to duplicate the sound that had made them successful briefly, but they were only minor successes. At this time, Linda G. Thompson left the group and was replaced by New Yorker Rhonda Heath, who was chosen over other hopefuls at an open casting call to become the newest singer for the group.

Michael Kunze wrote the lyrics on the first two albums under the pseudonym Stephan Prager. During this time the three singers released their own solo work. McLean and Thompson achieved hit singles with "Lady Bump" and "1, 2, 3, 4 ... Fire!", and "Ooh What a Night" respectively. Wulf's solo effort was only a moderate success.

Silver Convention represented Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1977 with "Telegram", finishing eighth. The entry had only English lyrics (with considerably more words than their past hits), but was allowed to enter in spite of the language rule being reintroduced this year, because the song was chosen to represent Germany before the reintroduction was announced. In 1994, Rhonda Heath returned to Eurovision, providing backing vocals and keyboards for the German entry "Wir Geben 'Ne Party" performed in German by Mekado. This entry did better than Silver Convention's effort, finishing third out of the 25 entries in Dublin.

With a new producer (John Davis), and a revised line-up of singers (Suzie McClosky aka Zenda Jacks, Rhonda Heath and Ramona Wulf), Silver Convention was successful again during 1978 with the album Love in a Sleeper. The 12" single release from the LP was "Spend the Night With Me" backed with "Mission To Venus".

Levay also worked with Giorgio Moroder, and Kunze began work with Jim Steinman. The solo careers of the three singers ended quickly and they left the music industry. Levay and Kunze later collaborated on the successful Vienna productions of the musicals Elisabeth, Mozart! and Rebecca.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Convention
http://www.silverconvention.de/

Download : http://www.divshare.com/download/18882623-f8e

Teddy Pendergrass - I Can't Live Without Your Love

Teddy Pendergrass - I Can't Live Without Your Love

1982 Grammy Award Nomination Best Male R&B Vocal Performance

Pendergrass received several nominations for the American Music Awards between 1979 and 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist, Favorite Soul/R&B Album, and Favorite Disco Artist. He won the AMA for Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist in 1979, alongside singer Lou Rawls in a tie.

Teddy Pendergrass started singing gospel music in Philadelphia churches, becoming an ordained minister at ten years old. While attending public school, he sang in the citywide McIntyre Elementary School Choir and in the All-City Stetson Junior High School Choir. A self-taught drummer, Pendergrass had a teen pop vocal group when he was 15. By his late teens, Pendergrass was a drummer for local vocal group the Cadillacs.

In the late '60s, the Cadillacs merged with another more established group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. In 1970, when the Blue Notes broke up, Melvin, now aware of Pendergrass' vocal prowess, asked him to take the lead singer spot. It's no secret that Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff wanted Marvin Junior of the Dells for their Philadelphia International Records roster. Since the Dells were signed to Chess, they were unavailable. When the gruff'n'ready vocals of Pendergrass came their way, they eagerly signed the group. Beginning with "I Miss You," a steady stream of hit singles flowed from the collaboration of Pendergrass and Gamble & Huff: "If You Don't Know Me by Now," "The Love I Lost," "Bad Luck," "Wake Up Everybody" (number one R&B for two weeks in 1976), and two gold albums, To Be True and Wake Up Everybody.

Unfortunately, the more success the group had, the more friction developed between Melvin and Pendergrass. Despite the revised billing of the group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Theodore Pendergrass, Pendergrass felt that he wasn't getting enough recognition. Around 1976, Pendergrass left Melvin's Blue Notes and formed his own Blue Notes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Briefly, there was some confusion as to which Blue Notes were which. The resolution came when Pendergrass disbanded his Blue Notes in favor of a solo career and Melvin's group signed a recording contract with Source Records, distributed through ABC Records, scoring a hit with "I Want to Be Your Lover."

 Pendergrass signed a new contract with Philadelphia International Records in late 1976/early 1977. He burst back on the scene with Teddy Pendergrass, a platinum solo debut that included the top-notch singles "I Don't Love You Anymore," "You Can't Hide from Yourself," and "The More I Get the More I Want." Around this time, Pendergrass began to institute his infamous "Ladies Only" concerts. His next three albums went gold or platinum: Life Is a Song Worth Singing (1978), Teddy (1979), and Teddy Live (Coast to Coast). The hit single "Close the Door" was used in the film Soup for One, where Pendergrass had a small role.

The singer received several Grammy nominations during 1977 and 1978, Billboard's 1977 Pop Album New Artist Award, an American Music Award for best R&B performer of 1978, and awards from Ebony magazine and the NAACP. He was also in consideration for the lead in the movie biopic The Otis Redding Story. The '70s ended, but Pendergrass kept racking up the hits. TP, his fifth solo album, went platinum in the summer of 1980 off the singles "Turn Off the Lights," "Come Go with Me," "Shout and Scream," "It's You I Love," and "Can't We Try." It's Time for Love gave Pendergrass another gold album in summer 1981, which included the hit singles "Love TKO" and "I Can't Live Without Your Love."

A 1982 car accident left Pendergrass paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound. After almost a year of physical therapy and counseling, Pendergrass returned to the recording scene, signing a contract with Elektra/Asylum in 1983. His ninth solo album and Elektra/Asylum debut, Love Language went gold the spring of 1984. Philadelphia International issued two albums of unreleased tracks, This One's for You (1982) and Heaven Only Knows (1983). Other albums included Workin' It Back (1985), Joy (1988, whose title track went to number one R&B for two weeks), and Little More Magic (1993). 

The latter half of the '90s found Pendergrass recording for the Surefire/Wind Up label. Truly Blessed, the name of an 1991 Elektra album, is also the title of the autobiography Pendergrass co-authored with Patricia Romanowski. Apart from an appearance at a 2007 ceremony held in his honor, Pendergrass spent his later years away from the spotlight. He had difficulty recovering from colon cancer surgery and passed away on January 13, 2010.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/teddy-pendergrass-mn0000020278

Download link : http://www.divshare.com/download/18840657-eaa

'This Is Disco' Boney M. Tribute @ Aurora (Pahi Megaron) Sat. 14

Do not miss this 60 Minutes tribute to the legendary Boney M. group.
Made from rare 12'' mix singles & some great remixes.

This Is Disco

Saturday 14 July

Boney M. Tribute

Soundtrack by The Phantom

Aurora Cafe Bar (Pahi Megaron)

Info's 6947198871

Jean Carn - If You Don't Know Me By Now

 

Jean Carn - If You Don't Know Me By Now

Jean Carn's lone Motown effort reunites the singer with producer Norman Connors, whose mid-'70s dates for Buddah effectively launched her solo career. Trust Me proves some distance removed from the jazz-funk context of their previous collaborations, however, instead couching Carn's potent vocals in a slickly commercial, radio-friendly setting that casts neither artist nor producer in a positive light. 

The album's biggest chart hit, a cover of the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes classic "If You Don't Know Me by Now" that features the Temptations on backing vocals, exemplifies all of Trust Me's flaws: Carn and Connors rely on safe, conventional material and saleable gimmicks that render the music absolutely faceless. The album's title is sadly accurate. Rather than going for broke, Trust Me plays it far too close to the vest.

Download : http://www.divshare.com/download/18702958-1fb

Carol Williams - Love Is You

Carol Williams - Love Is You

New Jersey native Carol Williams had performed with soul groups Geminis and the Del-Rios prior to her breakthrough as a disco artist. Beginning with the catchy, Gloria Gaynor-influenced "Rattlesnake" (replete with a contagious lead vocal) at the close of 1975, she would enjoy a string of dancefloor hits from 'Lectric Lady. 

The breezy "Love Is You" and a polished remake of Kai Winding's "More" both garnered international acclaim. Though "Love Is You" is the track to appear on most Salsoul compilations and has been sampled well into the new millennium, it was, in fact, the B-side to Williams' own composition, "Come Back." 

The latter boasts a stronger melody, more creative arrangement, and a more resilient vocal from the singer; but perhaps the fact that it didn't comply so strictly with the burgeoning disco formula prevented it from climbing further.

Another hidden gem lies in the moody, desperate "My Time of Need," a Williams composition which touches on out-of-wedlock pregnancy and makes effective vocal use of a fast-food jingle. In addition to the up-tempo numbers, the singer also turns in a touching performance on the Philly soul ballad "This Time May Be the Last Time" (earlier recorded by De De Warwicke). 

All in all, 'Lectric Lady is a solidly produced, strongly arranged set with a fine range of material. With the Salsoul Orchestra on board throughout, it serves as one of the label's fundamental albums. By Justin M. Kantor AllMusic

Free download : http://www.divshare.com/download/18702079-7d8

Dj Gregory Presents Space Beyond Space (homemadedjmix).mp3

Can You Dig It? The '70s Soul Experience (love these covers)

The liner notes that accompany this collection note that '70s soul music has never really gotten its due. One could argue that point for days, but hubris aside, there's no denying that Can You Dig It pays serious homage to the golden years of American soul. The new box set contains 6 CDs and 136 cuts, 65 of which hit the No. 1 spot on the R&B and/or pop charts. As you'd expect with a project that mines such a rich era (the CDs are compiled chronologically), it represents a who's who of stars. Among the notables: Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, the Spinners, the O'Jays, the Staple Singers, James Brown, Chairmen of the Board, Laura Lee, Freda Payne, and Jean Knight. Lesser lights also get to shine, i.e., El Chicano, who deliver the salsafied hippie anthem "Tell Her She's Lovely." But let's be honest--the selling point is the hits, and from the uplifting "Ooh Child" to the sassy "Want Ads," if you grew up in the '70s (hands up), then these tracks are beloved. Sure, the hard-core fan will probably wish for more obscurities, and the exclusion of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and George Clinton is troublesome, but anyone wanting an at-home jukebox loaded with classic R&B will certainly dig this. ~ Amy Linden

In short Rhino did an excellent job with "Can You Dig It - The '70s Soul Experience" in all regards; song selection, packaging and audio quality. The only slight downer is that Rhino chose to use the familiar radio edits instead of the album cuts. Nonetheless, this is a boxset that will put a smile on your face as all those memories from the 1970s come flooding back as you listen to all your favorite Soul / R & B songs. Just look at the tracklisting. Can you dig it? I knew you could dig 70s Soul. Highly recommended. ~ discomusic.com

Buy : 

http://www.amazon.com/Can-You-Dig-Soul-Experience/dp/B00005Q469

Download :

http://www.israbox.com/1146359660-va-can-you-dig-it-the-70s-soul-experience-boxset.html

ELECTRON - SUNDAY 8 JULY AT AURORA MEGARA

Martin Luther King - The Great March To Freedom (1963)

Download A Side : http://www.divshare.com/download/18576948-457

Download B Side : http://www.divshare.com/download/18576993-d7a

Artist That Built The House : Colonel Abrams

 Colonel Abrams – Trapped (Dance Vocal Version)

"Trapped" is a single released by American dance music artist Colonel Abrams in 1985. It has since become known as Abrams' signature song and still receives airplay on dance radio stations in the UK and the United States. The song combines elements of both R&B and dance.

This song has arguably remained Abrams' biggest hit on both sides of the Atlantic, topping the US Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week in September 1985 and peaking at number three on the UK singles chart. The single has also been used as a sampled loop in Marradonna's 1994 club single "Out Of My Head."

Download Link : http://www.divshare.com/download/18576366-14a

Electron ------> Sunday Afternoon 8 July @ Aurora (Pahi Megaron)