Aretha Franklin Queen Of Soul Forever

Aretha Franklin The Queen Of Soul paved the way like no other female vocalist of our time.
When I was around 8 years old my late father used to have late parties in the house and all I could hear from my bedroom as a child was the 'Lady Soul' album on repeat from 'Chain Of Fools', 'Money Won't Change', 'People Get Ready', Issac Hayes 'Shaft' & Curtis Mayfield 'Curtis album. Even in my sleep, Aretha was touching my Soul not just a great singer, but a great pianist also. 

I collected every album she ever recorded from the unsuccessful Columbia recording period right through to Atlantic recordings and then Artista records, That was nine or so Columbia releases that were released from 1961- 1967. The Atlantic Records hit period started in 1967 with her 'I Never Loved A Man' (The Way I Loved You) album the first of 20 album releases including one of the most succesful Gospel album of all time the Double Vinyl released 'Amazing Grace 'set. Her Atlantic Recordings hit factor slowed down in 1977-1979 with her very underrated Curtis Mayfield set 'Almighty Fire', Lamont Dozier produced 'Sweet Passion', & Van McCoy's mostly produced 'La Diva' album.

In 1980 she signed with Arista Records with Clive Davis in the A&R hot seat Aretha was back with her debut Arista set 'Aretha' which included her version of 'What A Fool Believes', Arif Mardin produced her next set in 1981 the 'Love All The Hurt Away' in which it's title track was a duet with George Benson. Luther Vandross was called in for the next two sets 'Jump To It' & 'Get It Right', Narada Michael Walden for the 'Who Zooming Who' album that included the #1 R&B /#3 National Billboard chart hit 'Freeway Of Love'. 'A Rose is Still a Rose' was her thirty-seventh studio album it resulted in the singer's most critically acclaimed and best-selling album of the 1990s, the single featured Lauryn Hill, the album stands as one of Aretha's most successful sets. Clive Davis once again took control of Aretha Franklin last studio album 'Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics' which was a tribute of ten covers of songs made famous by female recording artists, which once again took the Queen to the top 3 of the  USA R&B chart with her covers of songs made famous by Gladys Knight, Etta James, Gloria Gaynor, Barbra Streisand, Chaka Khan, Alicia Keys & Adele.

Soul music is back in the national charts after the death of the Queen, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson (To Be Loved) arguably started the sound in 1957 with 'You Send Me' & tagged The Man That Invented Soul, but my research also gives Jackie Wilson credit and for inspiring The Motown Sound with Berry Gordy.

Soul Music deserves its own category back!  like it used to have, as R&B (Rhythm & Bass) includes Hip Hop and Rap which now heads the way in America, Soul Music is looked as an older person's thing, but there has never been so much great new Soul Music around. If you tune into Starpoint Radio you will discover the best of this, it's an online & DAB radio station that offers the best in today's Soul music with classics mixed in, other stations include Solar Radio in which you can listen via Sky TV also. It's time to tune into SOUL MUSIC once again and let the music touch you with great recent albums by Cornell Carter, Rai, Tyra Lavone, Al Lindsey, Show Tyme, Ty Causey, Chris Jasper etc. As we get older the melodies of today, with the most sound like they haven't got any, and in fact machine-driven, with the odd exception of artists like Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys, Beyonce (at times), Pharrell Williams ‎among others.

We have lost many of the greats and it's now time to support the new& older independent artists that are still creating fantastic Soul music for our listening pleasure in which many of you don't know exist.

Aretha Franklin The Queen Of Soul saves our Soul and puts Soul music back in the national charts, what a shame she had to pass for this to happen.
RIP Aretha, we will love you forever and you'll always be in our soul!

Thanks for reading

Gary Van den Bussche
(DSG Radio promotions, Disco Soul Gold Music, Starpoint Radio broadcaster, Disco Soul Gold Facebook page)

Just added to the blog is Mike Prior's excellent tribute to Aretha, out of the many this is one of the best! 

LISTEN TO MIKE'S ARETHA FRANKLIN TRIBUTE HERE 

Vivienne McKone - Everything's Gonna Be Alright hit #1 in the UK Soul chart.

Vivienne McKone began dancing at the age of two and worked as a child on commercials for
UK and US television, on stage in Thomas Kingsley’s “TheWater Babies” in the West End and
with Anita Harris and Tony Bennett in the ‘Anita Harris in Jumbleland’ television series -
dancing, singing and acting. After early training in jazz and tap dancing, as a pre-teen, she
appeared as 'Velma', the solo dancer, in Alan Parker's film “Bugsy Malone” in 1976. Vivienne
regularly appeared on television, in theatre and in films until 1992, when her career in music
took off.

As Vivienne tells it, “When I was in my mid teens, I decided that I wanted to write and sing
my own songs. I had been taking piano lessons since the age of 8, so I bought a Fender
Rhodes Suitcase 73 Piano when I was about 15 or 16 and wrote my first song on this when I
was 17. Lots of the records I liked by Carole Bayer Sager, Patrice Rushen and others featured
this instrument. When I was in my early 20’s I bought a portastudio, drum machines,
synthesizers and other home recording gear and spent several years doing lots of demos,
building contacts in the music business and doing showcase gigs until I got signed by London
Records.” 

Her first album, “Vivienne McKone”,was produced by Stewart Levine, highly-regarded for his
work with The Crusaders, Randy Crawford and Simply Red. Vivenne’s debut single, “Sing (Ooh-
Ee-Ooh)”, reached #47 in the UK charts on 25 July 1992 and was used as the theme for BBC
TV’s Travel Show from 1994-1997. The followup, “Beware”, reached #69 in the UK charts on
October 31st, 1992. A series of recordings and ‘live’ gigs kept Vivienne busy for the next 10
years or so until she decided to take a break from music while setting up a new home.
Vivienne started working with Mike Collins in 2011, establishing a song-writing partnership
while contemplating a return to ‘live’ performance. The first fruits of their creative
collaboration are two dynamic new mixes of Vivienne’s song “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”,
featuring Mike on guitar and Gary Barnacle on sax.

Vivienne McKone is currently #1 on the UK Soul chart  with the Nigel Lowis mixes
now also released on i Tunes and Amazon on DSG

‎Mike Maurro's remixes are set for The Peak Hour!

Tom Moulton is the Godfather or The God of the remix, but a new Prince has arrived via, Mike Maurro's forthcoming album on Harmless records. The Mike-Maurro-Peak-Hour-Remixes  is a new collection of 21 classic Disco Soul & Funk favorites, remixed with love from the original Multi tracks. The album includes classic by, The Trammps, Detroit Spinners, Ashford & Simpson, Change, Blue Magic, George Duke, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Candi Staton. The collection is already climbing the Amazon sales chart on pre-orders alone! 

 Mike Maurro, a native New Yorker, was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1973. He lived there for the first seven years of his life before his family made a permanent move to Queens, where his passion for music first surfaced. In 1984, after watching the motion picture “Beat Street”, Mike began following dance music by scanning the top dance hits on New York City radio stations such as 100.3 Z-100, Hot 103.5, 98.7 Kiss FM. It was during these years of intense music study that Mike discovered dj's & producers such as Arthur Baker, John Robie, Afrika Bambaataa, John "Jellybean" Benitez, The Latin Rascals & "Little" Louie Vega who fueled his desire to become a DJ. By 1986 he was ready to start mixing. His DJ career began with a handful of 12" records and 2 mis matched turntables he set out to learn the art of beat mixing. By late 1987 and 1988 He began working mobile jobs such as weddings, birthdays, and block parties with a neighborhood DJ company "All Night Long DJ's"— before he was even old enough to drive. 

By 1991, Mike owned his own DJ company "Dj's In Control", but his first real break did not happen until a year later at The Harbor Club in Queens. One night the regular DJ was unable to perform, and Mike (who was working as a bus boy at the time) was called upon to replace him. He began spinning there from time to time, but left the night club in 1993 when he was passed up for a regular position. The next few years were quiet for Mike, who didn’t return to the scene until 1998 when he submitted his mixes to “Brooklyn’s Own” Joe Causi for his WKTU "Studio 54 Clubhouse" show. Causi was impressed at the skill level of the tracks, and placed Mike into rotation with other popular NY area DJ's such as Jenny Costa, Johnny Rocks, Johnny D, Jimmy Yu, Antonio Corrao, Delmar Browne, George Calle, Sally Boy Curto, Louie Mangione and others. Not far after that, Mike began doing a once a week midday mix for 103.5 WKTU, as well as classic dance mixes for 102.7 Mixx FM.

Mike entered the remix world in 2010.......with only a modest desktop computer, a copy of Ableton Live , and a handful of multi tracks downloaded from the internet he began to practice dissecting a song looking for the best combinations of instruments, creating breaks, lengthening intro's etc. After meeting the great Tom Moultonin 2011, he began to understand the true art of the remix.....under the guidance of Tom, Mike began to discover his own style of remixing. And with the tips from other legends in the remix game, Mike has created a signature sound with unconventional methods of mixing. His extra long drumless intro's and acappella endings have been widely accepted and praised by artists, dj's and dancers all over the globe from the US, UK , France, Australia, and Italy. He now owns a powerful Pro Tools based digital studio and is equipped for all types of remix work.

The album is released on January 26th 2015 on download and a deluxe 3 CD box set edition with a very special low price tag, then you might have had to pay for just one of these tracks on 12 inch vinyl.

The collection is, three hours, thirty six minutes & thirty eight second of heaven! Recommended.
Pre-order or listen to more link: Mike-Maurro-Peak-Hour-Remixes remixes pre-order it here!

Gary Van den Bussche

Last Night A Remix Saved My Life!

So what makes the perfect record? 
So often you can have an outstanding voice or song, but the production sucks. So it does not show the real potential the song has. In these days with recording budgets being cut, mostly as a sign of poor sales, more and more artists are recording their projects at home, then getting them remixed to a more mastered state for release. 

 Quality production with real instruments luckily still happens, as we have recently heard with Rumer, even a real string section was included. The days of big soulful orchestras like Barry White's  Love Unlimited Orchestra or MFSB  (The Philadelphia International Records House orchestra/ Band) are rare, as many of those had in the region of 50 musicians. This year, I signed a demo of a song that was over seven years old and first I arranged some edits / Re-Edits on the track, which then lead to a remix, which resulted in one of Soul Music's biggest songs of the year in the UK. Do the artists like remixes of their work? They stated after the releases prior to their album presentation to me, after gaining a name from the remixes, If I'm totally honest. ''If you want an album full of other peoples mixes etc then i suggest you ask someone else to write the songs and release their own album''. So the big question is, do some artists feel offended that their work has been changed? or the fact that the remix producer has stolen the limelight, but the song at the end of the day remains the same! To me, the remix reaching other market places the original mix might not have & therefore expanding the songs potential.

 Promotion is a key element to the singles success, no point spending the earth recording the song, then not spending money on promotion. Just how many artists think that their Facebook friends and fans will buy it in droves & then wonder why they have no chart position?. 

Back in the day there weren't so many genres, so if it was a new single by say, Kool & The Gang, it would have climbed in all the charts including the Dance, Soul, National chart, without the later worry for the label to establish the track to the House or other market places, although many classic's has been remixed since, they do bring a new younger fan base or new audience to the song and quite often establish a top selling album for all involved, be it in the title form of ,Re-Loaded, Re-Hashed, The Remixes, Expanded edition, or even a greatest hits with new extra remixes.. 

Melba Moore recently used our services to promote her latest single, ''Just Dance'' the original mix had an R&B vibe, with Radio DJ's asking for other remixes, with Melba's permission, I got the single remixed for her, the first two remixes released just before Christmas with the other two remaining remixes set to be released in the new year.

They say a good song never dies, where in fact in some cases the artist might have passed, but their music will stay with us forever, often becoming more popular after rather than before their death. The remix does benefit all parties! The remix producers normally or often has to re-write the backing track to fit the original vocal part of the song, therefore they could receive co writing royalties cheques for their work, but if it generates sales that would not have happened without the remix, then fair is fair. Most of today's artists expect remixes to be done. The most recent work by Lisa Stansfield  has just been re-released as part of a remix album package, whether or not the artist gets to hear all the remixes is another thing, as quite often they are writing new songs for the next album. 

(Lisa Stansfield talks to Gary Spence on Solar Radio)

Often the remix can also re-chart a song like Drizabone, Rufus and Chaka Khan experienced in the UK top 20 with their classic songs, Real Love and Ain't Nobody.
If you are a re mixer or producer it would be great hearing from you, likewise if you have your own Soul classic stored on a computer somewhere - You can send your show real to me Gary Van den Bussche at  discosoulgold@live.com. Thanks for reading.

Soul Music in 2015

Soul Music as much as we love it, but why has it been removed from today's  musical categories? Sam Cooke was one of the first to release a #1 Soul single, as far back as 1957 with, ''You Send Me''.

The single went on to inspire many Soulful artists including, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Jackie Wilson, were also on the same path. Motown Records, Berry Gordy enjoyed his first taste of early success making, Wilson into a R&B / Soul superstar. Gordy used the money from, ''Lonely Teardrops'' single success to form Motown Records within a year in the January of 1959. Motown records had hit after hit, with such greats as, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Four Tops and many other great artists, songwriters and producers. 

Other record labels followed including, Stax Records, Atlantic Records, &  Philadelphia International Records, who later enjoyed much success in the 70's & 80's .
Soul Music was selling by the bucket, even back then labeled as Rhythm & Blues (R&B), in some cases, later in Billboard Magazine listing a chart as, ''Best selling Hot Soul Chart.''

 As we went on through to the 70's, many Soul artists started recording Disco Songs, as the  Disco scene exploded we then had, The Disco Charts and The Disco category remained popular with the mainstream until about 1979, although it's never really disappeared, as even today artists such as, Robin Thicke, Daft Punk, Bruno Mars, and the likes, we will keep having hits with the Disco Style sound as it's a Genre we once accepted and still love & will always accept again.

Boogie followed in the 80's, with many Disco artist recording under this tag, oh how we must love putting Music into Categories, Funk, Jazz-Funk,Psychedelic Funk, Blue Eyed Soul etc... 

What has happened in 2014 is the big question? 
These days the Award ceremonies have forgotten Soul Music, they have many categories even, Gospel, Country, Jazz, Rap, Latin, Dance/ Electronic (which includes House Music), R&B , but No Soul or Soulful. 

True the likes of, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Mary J Blidge, can fit into the R&B category, but where do we place such artists such as, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, who have had strong sellers this year? 
Ron Islet, Kem, Will Downing, Chris Jasper, Earth Wind & Fire, Betty Wright, have no music category to fit into as such! 

Maybe it would be a good idea to do a Soulful category? If  Anita Baker's new album ever gets a release i'm sure this would fit this section as would many Grammy award winning Soul artists that are still recording today. 

It's a great pity, not only have the record shops (that we have left), but the download stores also, are just not sure where to put Soul music!
Lisa Stansfield has just had a top 20 UK album, with so many people still saying, we did not know ,Lisa Stansfield has a new album or where do we find music like this?
Please help spread the word! SOUL MUSIC is here to stay, as we all need it! The music we love & grew up with so, Lets keep it Soulful. 

After watching an awards program back in 2005, Ola Onabule wrote the song, ''Soul Town'' asking why ? has the music we love so much, been removed from all the award ceremony categories...
Soul Town by Ola Onabule the remixes will be released on 13th April on DSG Music to see if we can't bring Soul back to the place we love ... 

If you have a Soulful track new or old that you would like released? We can't promise you millions of sales, but can promise you the best in promotion! You even get to keep your own music publishing! Please send your tracks to: discosoulgold@live.com
Thanks for reading,
Gary Van den Bussche

Colin Watson CW Remix, Mike Maurro House Of Soul Remix, Nigel Lowis Remix 

to be released 13th April on DSG Music.

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes with David Ebo

David Ebo (9 Nov 1950- November 30, 1930) had the hard job in 1975 to replace the great Teddy Pendergrass as lead singer of, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. The group signed to ABC records and got off to a good start in 1977 with the gold single,'' Reaching For The World'' from the US R&B top 20 album of the same name.

David Ebo was a school class mate of Teddy Pendergrass, who was just starting his career with Philadelphia International records. Later on the same year , the group released their second album for ABC records called, '' Now Is The Time'' the album was a disappointment as far as sales were concerned , it only climbed to the lower regions of the US R&B Chart. The album did included this, Jerome Jones written gem called, ''Feels Like Magic''. The album was produced by Harold Melvin and
seems like it was overlooked missed at the time. 

In 1986 David Ebo did release his only solo album called,'' I'd Rather Be My Myself '', which was also

the title cut of the album. The Album was arranged & produced by Allan Felder.

Prince Phillip Mitchell returns after 23 years!

It's been 23 years since we last heard from Prince Phillip Mitchell, but the talented singer returns with a new 7 inch release called "Just The Beginning," backed with the B-side (great to say that again), "something new to do," released on the Soul 4 Real label. Mitchell is a veteran composer, vocalist, guitarist, and pianist who was not only in both The Premiers and The Checkmates in the late '50s and early '60s, but was also a great solo artist in his own right. He has written countless gems for other artists as well including, "It Hurts So Good," a hit for Millie Jackson and also Susan Cadogan; "Starting All Over Again," originally written for Sam and Dave but recorded instead by Mel and Tim, whose version was a 1972 hit on the Stax's record label; "A Star In the Ghetto," recorded by the Average White Band with Ben E. King, plus other songs by the likes of Millie Jackson, Norman Connors, Joe Simon, and Candi Staton.

As a solo artist, Mitchell's released the single, "One On One," on Atlantic records in 1978 and reached the  R&B top 40 (it was part of the 1978 album, Make It Last, that featured background vocals by The Jones Girls). Top Of The Line followed in 1979, featuring the underground soul masterpieces, "I'm So Happy," and "If It Ain't Love It'll Go Away." He released two albums on the, Ichiban Records, with the last one being in 1991.

Mitchell's music, whether recorded by him or another artist, has always been on the classier side of Soul.

Read more here!

Listen here : > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_nRKfRqng 

New Single order line

http://princephillipmitchell.com/photos/