Daryl Easlea excerpt

[Marcio**]

from "EVERYBODY DANCE: CHIC AND THE POLITICS OF DISCO" :)




"At the same time work began on their Real People album, they embarked on a production for one of the most famous and important black stars in the known universe: Diana Ross. By now Rodgers and Edwards had established a set pattern of working with their charges. Their style was to sit down with the artists for a couple of hours, find out all about them and then go home and write the album. But this was the first time that the duo had worked with an established artist, and their benignly dictatorial working methods were alien to Ross.

The recording began with sessions for "I'm Coming Out", "Give Up" and "Upside Down", and continued into January 1980. "Everybody we had worked with up to that point were all good friends of ours - if we said, 'Jesus Christ, what are you doing singing that bullshit?', they would shoot back, 'Hey, pal, your guitar part's no picnic either.' Nothing was really personal."

When Edwards, the "bad cop" of the Chic producing partnership, suggested that Ross may have been singing "underneath" one of the tracks, the following dialogue ensued, as recalled by Rodgers:

"We were trying to say she was singing flat. Bernard's exact words were,

'Um. Excuse me Diana, I think you're singing a little under the track.'

'Bernard, I've never heard that before, what does under the track mean?'

'Under the track'.

'You mean under the pitch of the track?'

'Yes - that's it!'

'You mean FLAT?'

'Yes.'

Bang. And that was it - she stormed out of the studio, screaming 'BERRY GORDY NEVER TOLD ME I SING FLAT!' We never saw her again for 30 days."

The album was delivered to Motown in March 1980. Ross wasn't happy. They were accused of trying to make their sound shine and Motown's first lady look poor by comparison. Ross demanded a remix. Again it was not to her liking. So it was remixed without Edwards and Rodgers' knowledge by Ross's long-term f engineer, Russ Terrana. "I was devastated on first hearing Motown's mix. I was in tears over our artistic vision," Rodgers later said.

Rolling Stone called the album "streamlined-designer-funk" and said that Rodgers and Edwards "came to the rescue" of the singer. In Britain it remained on the charts for 32 weeks. Rodgers and Edwards were approached by Ross the following year to produce Why Do Fools Fall In Love?. They respectfully declined the offer."


:)

[buckaroo]

:evil:
Diva my arse!!! She's an ungrateful B-I-T-C-H. That Diana album is so magnificent...she didn't deserve it. The Chic boys saved her career, and since teaming up with the Bee Gees for "Chain Reaction" in '86, another band from the disco era, she hasn't had any decent hits. "Workin' Overtime." Who else remembers that tosh? :lol: You don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone, as they say.

Was that exerpt taken from a book or magazine?