The Cerrone War (Cerrone vs. Alec R Costandinos and Leroy Gomez

[DJ Jimmy M]

Ok, after reading on another thread about "Accidental lover" sounding like Cerrone. I decided ill make a thread about the story off all this. Well, it began in 1975 when Costandinos got together with Cerrone and made "Love In C Minor". It was Alec's first disco record. He had previously done little things for other French pop artists in the early 70s. Anyway, Cerrone tried to take all the credit for C minor. Going as far as putting out a press kit claming he wrote, recorded and produced this album all himself. Alec was left in the dust and his work unnoticed unless u read small LP credits on the jacket. Costandinos got very pissed by this and went off and made 2 LP's (or 12"s with covers if u wanna call them that as well). The first was the Love And Kisses one. "Accidental Lover" was made as proof that Alec was C Minor. Down to even the simmalar sax solo in almost the exact same spot in both records. It was a combo musicly of "C Minor" and "Midnight Lady". Then Alec went and did the Sphinx deal. "Judas..." was basicly Romeo And Juliet and Hunchback... in the making. "Simon Peter" once again was Alec's anger at Cerrone pulling the same thing as he did on "Accidental Lover". Also, if u look at the credits on Cerrone's "Cerrone's Paradise" lp, u'll notice there is no thanks at all to Alec, but just to Don Ray. The war was in progress and Alec was pissed and giving it all he had. In the meenwhile, Alec started going deeper and concintrating on getting his famous "sound" established and stopped with the Cerrone stabbs so to speak. Cerrone however did it again, this time to a guy by the name of Leroy Gomez(ring a bell anyone??). The group name and LP was called Revelacion and they did a spanish influinced disco version of "House Of The Rising Sun". For side A of this LP it was totaly produced and the idea of the spanish disco was by Leroy Gomez. On the LP his name is not even mentioned. Leroy's answer to this was Santa Esmeralda. He went a bit deeper than Alec to get back at Mr. Cerrone. He chose another Eric Burdon track "Dont Let Me Be Misunderstood" and totaly did it to the same music as "House..." and even the same paterns and sections to prove himself. If u play both these records together from the Revelacion Suite and Esmeralda Suite portions, they do not go out of sync at all through the rest of the record. Just different lyrics. Leroy then gave vocals over to a guy named Jimmy Goings for the next LP and did another Spanish influinced "House..;." under Esmeralda's name. Cerrone's responce to this was releasing a track under the Revelacion name called "Dont Give A Damn". Listen to the lyrics of this one. It appears to be about one thing but it is hidden that some lyrics are being spoken about the Esmeralda deal. Very tricky and slick i must say. After this the music war was just about done and put to rest with each of the artists developing thier own sound and going their own ways. But, Alec didnt forget about all this and came back out with a "hidden" crack back at it all on the "Paris Connection" LP. On the "You Lost That Loving Feeling/Unchained Melody" suite, smack in the middle Alec breaks into a compleate instrumental run through of the "Love In C Minor" chorus. You know, the part, "loooove meeeee....dadadaadada...", but without the lyrics. And if you listen close, u can hear a very angry breathing as this part is going on(i picked it up on my headphones). So, thats the Cerrone war story for those who didnt know about it. I did much research on Alec, who is one of my all time favorite artists of all geners of music, thats how i got the inside scoop on all this. So, if this info is new to anyone and u have all these albums, then pull em out and take a listen. It'll be very shocking.

DJ Jimmy M

[DotBomb]

What a terriffic story! When I spoke with Elton Ahi last year, the second I mentioned Cerrone, he cut me off with, "He's an asshole." I always knew Costandinos held a grudge against Cerrone... and was not aware of the Paris Connection reference to Love In C Minor.

And I was totally unaware of the whole Leroy Gomez story... impressive!!

Now I'm just trying to find a copy of Revalacion's "Don't Give A Damn"...

Thanks for the info..

[DJ Jimmy M]

I don't know if "Dont Give A Damn" is on an LP or not. I have a 12" single with a picture sleave. If there is an LP id like to know so i can track it down. On the B side is as i would call it, an under construction version of "Living On Love". It's titled here, "Living It Up".

DJ Jimmy M

[The Lord of Flatbush]

This is an excellent story! I was quite impressed with the research made and all of its findings. I never knew of any beef between the parties involved and those who were included, along with the sound bytes on those prior records. Great job!

[DJ Jimmy M]

Paris Connection with the C Minor bit i discovered on my own when i first heard it. I knew the war story, then when i heard that break in at the middle i was just like, holy shit, he didnt let it go!!! I even went as far as to do a little 3 min mix for my own listening bleeding the vocals of C Minor over this part. The strange thing is, i had to pitch down C Minor to -8 to get it to go in perfect sync. And by doing this the vocals are in the right key and all. One more bizzare twist to add to all of this.

DJ Jimmy M

[rhessel]

Hello DJ Jimmy M and the others...

I already known about the war between Costandinos and Cerrone. As a matter of fact I have a magazine (Disco World, from 1978 or so)which has an interview with Costandinos. In this interview he told among other subjects some details about this misunderstanding they had.

I typed this interview and sent it to Bernie which summarized it and published in this board incluind the most important information. Due to copyright matters Bernie didn't transcribed all the interview.

So, I think its the right time to Bernie to make another summary (or even to write it again) of this interview. If he don't have the file anymore I could send him another copy. (Hey Bernie now its up to you. Thanks)

[NickNack]

DJ Jimmy M,

Excellent piece. So many of us here have discussed these artists before but you more than adequately added to those discussions. I knew all this music sounded, at times, similar, but had no idea what was going on in the background.

Now, once again, I have to hunt through my lp's and find Revalacion, among others. It's been 'misfiled' for almost a year --- driving me crazy.

[DJ Jimmy M]

Yes, i would love to see whatever can be posted of that interview with Alec. Also, someone told me once that Alec did an interview for Playboy Mag. in 1978 as well discussing Romeo And Juliet and the Cerrone issue. Also, can anyone tell me if "Don't Give A Damn" was more than just a 12" single? If there is an LP, there might be more hidden stuff on it and id like to get it.

DJ Jimmy M

[Voyage]

Thanks for this great piece of Disco History. I didn't know a lot of the things you mentioned before about this war. Neither did I know about the war.

I agree with you that Alec is a Music Master!

[Chap2Power]

Regarding Cerrone and Costandinos, you guys are missing the point here. Costandinos first worked with Cerrone on the Kongas album, first released on Barclay that had the (M)alligator on the cover. Cerrone was the drummer in the band. They worked on Anikana-O together and that's where the branch off for Cerrone to do his album came about. Constandinos is a legend as a composer, having written songs selling millions with the likes of Vangelis for artists like Demis Roussos. Don Ray is mentioned on the 2nd album because he arranged the record. Aside this, there's never been any mention of Leroy Gomez every working with Cerrone, and Gomez himself was never comfortable with being a part of a disco band. He had toured with Tavares as a sax player. He only acknowledged his roots by doing the album with Simon Soussan that featured Get Up Boogie. Cerrone has had lots of run ins and his roller coaster rides with relationships. Most of these guys did.