Rare Groove ?

[Bastian78]

What is 'rare groove' ? Can someone explain me a bit.

Which acts are associated well with this style ?

thank you

[Forrrce]

The term originally appeared in the middle '80s. It was borne out of the warehouse/underground club scene (and the advent of London's hugely influential Kiss FM pirate station) and the emphasis was mainly on obscure funk 7"s, though the term encapsulated anything up to records that were only 2 years old.

Kiss's role was pivotal, as several DJs and record collectors got together to play (mainly older) obscure records which had passed many by. DJs like Norman Jay, Eddie 'Greenie' Greenaway and Desi 'D' were the first to use the term, if I recall correctly. Funk DJs like Jonathan 'Coldcut' More, Jay Strongman and Kerstan 'The Funky Fly' Mackness mainly represented the funk element - the former concentrated mainly on soul, funk and disco.

It was an interesting time which would change the world of music, pretty subtly. The rare groove scene gave us the Brand New Heavies, who managed to sell formulaic '70s grooves back to America; and in turn reawaken a lost pride in '70s music. I knew a lot of people who went to the 'States to buy records and shops & dealers just couldn't wait to give the things away. 'We're not interested in that old crap', they used to say. My favourite record shop at that time used to organise regular 'Stateside buying trips - the records they found in quantity were phenomenal. The rare groove scene here revived James Brown and The JBs' careers. Everyone wanted Lyn Collins, Marva Whitney, Bobby Byrd, Bill Doggett, etc. records and America still had bucketloads of these items in bins everywhere, it seemed.

Many early '80s records proved very hard to find in only a few months or a couple of years - cue Roy Ayers, Don Blackmon, Hipnotic, Rome Jefferies, Jagg, Curtis Hairston, Terry Callier, Gary Bartz - so many artists and tracks notorious for their rarity, or were just plain influential, stem from the rare groove scene.

Just a few examples of big 'rare groove' cuts in the middle-'80s:

'80s Ladies 'Turned On To You' '81 12" - a huge UK favourite from day one, mysteriously never released here at the time. It came to symbolise 'rare groove'.
Gwen McCrae 'All This Love That I'm Givin'' '79 LP - absolutely massive revival cut
James Mason 'Rhythm Of Life' '76 LP
JBs (all LPs)
Roy Ayers (early to mid-'70s LPs)
Don Blackman '82 LP
Weldon Irvine - most LPs
John Gibbs 'Trinidad' '77 12"
Universal Robot Band 'Barely Breaking Even' '82 12"
(Tommy) McGhee 'Now That I Have You' '82 7"/'84 12"
Leon Ware '82 LP (incl. 'Why I came To California')
Hipnotic 'Are You Lonely' '83 12"
Whatnauts 'Help Is On The Way' '81 12"
Active Force '83 LP
Gary Bartz 'Music Is My Sanctuary' '76 LP
Rene & Angela 'Wall To Wall' '81 LP
Wornell Jones '78 LP
Mighty Ryders '78 LP
Mickey & The Soul Generation 'Iron Leg' 7"
Tommy Stewart '76 LP
Vibrettes 'Humpty Dump' 7"
Steve Parks 'Moving In The Right Direction' 1981 LP
Sylvia Striplin 'You Can't Turn Me Away' '80 12"/LP
Marlena Shaw 'Go Away, Little Boy' '76 7"/12"/LP
Logg '81 LP
B.B.C.S. & A. 'Rock Shock' '82 12"
Clyde Alexander & Sanction 'Got To Get Your Love' '79 12"
The Younger Generation 'We Rap More Mellow' '79 12"
Rome Jefferies 'Good Love' '83 12"
Clausel 'Let Me Love You' '83 12"
Hi Tension 'There's A Reason' '79 12"
Leroy Hutson 'Paradise' '82 LP (and pretty much most of his catalogue)
Stairsteps '2nd Resurrection' '76 LP
Sheree Brown 'It's A Pleasure' '82 12"/LP
The Naturals 'Funky Rasta' '82 12"

There really is so much more. Most of the titles here have been overplayed, even for those who weren't around then - but there was a time when these records and many like them were incredibly popular and pretty difficult to obtain.

It quickly became more about the obscurity of the records to a lot of hangers-on, but the quality of much of the music was still high and pretty relevant - as you can see, a lot of the titles listed above were not that old when they became sought after.

[Bernie]

Forrrce,

Thanks for that nice explanation of rare groove and the examples. Learn something new everyday!

[QUINNY]

Forrrce: In your wisdom, would you say the Rare Groove scene concentrated on records that were something less than premier league. I know I'm as guilty as the next in 'bigging up' certain favourite records, but in my defense, the records worked with average, non-hip audiences, so I can only infer that they did have some merit. Do you think there was an analogy with the Northern Soul scene in some respects, in so much as both were started for the right reasons, but were eventually taken over by greed and a record's rarity meaning more than what was in the grooves, which lead to an ever increasing mediocrity? Did the jocks cover up labels as in the NS days and were there lotsa bootlegs made by a few unscrupulous dealers?

[Forrrce]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Forrrce: In your wisdom, would you say the Rare Groove scene concentrated on records that were something less than premier league. I know I'm as guilty as the next in 'bigging up' certain favourite records, but in my defense, the records worked with average, non-hip audiences, so I can only infer that they did have some merit. Do you think there was an analogy with the Northern Soul scene in some respects, in so much as both were started for the right reasons, but were eventually taken over by greed and a record's rarity meaning more than what was in the grooves, which lead to an ever increasing mediocrity? Did the jocks cover up labels as in the NS days and were there lotsa bootlegs made by a few unscrupulous dealers?

The scene?
The whole experience went sour pretty quickly. It was a genuinely exciting time initially, because most of the gems being unearthed were simply extensions of what the target audience was into - it's easier to break say, unknown Roy Ayers tracks to existing Roy Ayers fans, right? Of course, prices shot up overnight and some of the trickier items were bootlegged. Rare groove soon became a 'sound' - more or less anything '70s sounding with a wah-wah was referred to as a 'rare groove'. The middle and upper classes got in on the act (those Henriettas love living dangerously!). Remember the SAW 'Roadblock' scam? I can't believe anyone 'credible' fell for it, but it worked. When the country's biggest pop hit-making machine get wind of the underground, then emulate it and fool its patrons in the process, you know it's all over!


The records?
Sheer obscurity (not quite as synonymous with mediocrity as it is today - people weren't quite so easy to fool then) over quality was a little way off.


Now?
If the '80s Ladies, Gwen McCrae, Lyn Collins & The Jackson Sisters cuts were the grandmamas of the scene, then its grandfather must surely be 'Cross The Track (We Gotta Go Back)' by Maceo & The Macks. Currently being used for TV adverts, along with the Meters, Frank Wilson and whatever else you like. The rare groove generation have grown up and are now running things.
By the way, can't remember much about cover-ups, but bootlegs certainly paid for a few BMWs - and more.

[QUINNY]

Forrrce: Thanks for the info. Was rare groove a London thing primarily and then only certain manors?

To be honest, the whole rare groove scene completely passed me by.

Roadblock - quite a credible record 17 years on and in the cold light of day. I can imagine how hot and bothered some folks must have got over it. SAW were clever guys, weren't they?

[Mixmachine]

I learned something new also, I had no idea that 'Rare Grooves' was referring to a specific music classification anywhere; In the mid 80's in my area clubbers could care less about 70's music, remember mixing once Collins' "Think" with that early rap hit "It takes two" that sampled it and the floor fell flat, no one even knew of the original song.

Was vinyl in the mid 80's rare in UK already? Cause in the mid-80s vinyl was available every where still in the US, very few people had switched to cd yet.

[QUINNY]

Mixmachine: Vinyl wasn't rare at all. Rare Groove pertains to the records that were unearthed and the scene that built up around that. It was these guys' way of gaining credence by playing something different and less commercial than the current club scene at the time. It was, so far as I know, both esoteric, eclectic, eccentric in parts and of course totally hip ( for a while at least) and therefore looked upon with great disdain and apprehension by the rest of us.
In other words, no different to previous niches.

[Mixmachine]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Mixmachine: Vinyl wasn't rare at all. Rare Groove pertains to the records that were unearthed and the scene that built up around that. .

yes, I understood that, but Forrce mentions vinyl hunting trips to the US like if vinyl was not available in the UK in the mid 80's. I guess he means Albums not released there, but I know shops here were not giving away vinyl until much later in the 80's.

[Forrrce]

Quinny, I would say the scene was a London one primarily, because a lot of the key records had a very 'London' sound. Most of the songs listed above are at, or just above medium-tempo and essentially bass-driven - this has more to do with the black, inner-city sound, essentially moulded by a strong Caribbean/reggage influence. What was then christened 'two-step' - mid-tempo, tuneful soul numbers, was a big part of the initial gold rush. This was, perhaps, the more 'street' element of the scene and one which wasn't too fussed with the funkier/jazzier/discofied elements of rare groove.The voyage of discovery was a great one - imagine tuning in to radio stations and hearing quality, unknown oldies all day. Kiss FM had a stronger oldies policy than previous previous of its ilk. They were great, eye-and-ear opening times for me and many others, even though it became uber-fashionable (thus tiresome) overnight. And once this little, un-named scene got branded - and its own dress code, it was time to jump ship. I never called myself a rare-groover, by the way. Even then, I thought it was somehow commodicising this great mix of music, in a give-with-one-hand-and-take-with-the-other kind of way.



Mixmachine, if you check the records I listed, all but one of them is American by origin. With the exception of some of the James Brown/JBs titles, Sheree Brown, Rene & Angela, Stairsteps & Hi-Tension, none of the above had been released in the UK, pre-rare groove - and all but nine have been released in the UK in some form or other since then, directly through the interest and demand the scene generated. They would only have been available as imports when they were initally released (if at all in the UK) and owned by a privileged few. There were a handful of (mainly northern soul) record dealers who made regular 'Stateside buying trips, looking for indemand club titles since, at least, the early '70s (probably the most successful was John Anderson of Soul Bowl in Suffolk, who has been supplying northern, funk and soul collectors by mail for at least 30 years, I believe. Nice guy, too).

Vinyl in general hasn't been rare in the UK in my lifetime, but certain titles always have been. You wanted rare American records? You went to America. In the heat of the mania, a collector (now A&R man) called Steve Jervier put his money where his mouth was and opened two London shops in the space of a couple of years, stocked entirely with sought-after vinyl he'd acquired on buying trips to America. To do so now would be almost impossible - you'd have to pay eBay 'panic' prices and rely on trades to have a similar concern going. This is what I mean when I say it was all there for the taking. The Americans got wise after a while and started to want their records back. Like it or hate it, I seriously think rare groove changed the music world, more than just a little bit.


Quinny (again), how could you have viewed the scene with disdain as it passed you by???

[SandraDee]

I think Quinny's got a time machine which he uses to go back & decide whether he likes a particular music or not (it's invariably a resounding 'not' because it's too disco-ey :-? ). I hear he's going to be the new Dr.Who. Take care not to get that scarf trapped in the door of your Tardis sweety. :o

[DISCODISK]

STEELY since you mention dr who a catchfrase from that series springs to mind E--------- ! :lol: but i wont type it as hes amused me today with his thoughts hes just the last remaining english eccentric right

[Forrrce]

I believe Quinny's just out of shot, somewhere to the lower left...

[SandraDee]

Oh Forrrce, that image has really made my night! I always knew the darleks were under-rated & misunderstood. :lol:

[Mixmachine]

Forrce, Thanks for extra information , very interesting history I never knew at all, thiis UK 'Rare Groove" scene/movement must be unique in music history, it is amasing that all this attention revolved around old american soul recordings, here most people don't even remember (or care) recording/artist from the past (except the old tired top 40 list).