First 12" Single to Feature Different Mixes

[discokicks]

I am wondering what would be the first commercial 12" single to feature two or more different remixes of the song...not just the instrumental or dub version...but two unique approaches to the artist's original.

[Disco Funk]

If you mean the first 12 inch the public could purchase, then I think that would be Ten Percent by Double Exposure. Gibbons didn't remix it from the multi-track master tapes, but he did re-edit the final mix by putting that electric piano/drum break down section onto the intro.

Disco Funk

[BrunoRepublic]

Two different remixes, as in by different remixers, on one 12"? The only one I can think of is Ultimate's "Touch Me Baby", but there's got to be something earlier than that.

[markydefad]

If you mean the first 12 inch the public could purchase, then I think that would be Ten Percent by Double Exposure. Gibbons didn't remix it from the multi-track master tapes, but he did re-edit the final mix by putting that electric piano/drum break down section onto the intro.

Disco Funk

Disco Funk really nails it--one side has the Walter Gibbons mix; the other side has the Joe Cayre [one of the Salsoul owners] mix..so as early as 1976--the first commercial 12-inch!!!! I didn't even think of that!

[discokicks]

Two different remixes, as in by different remixers, on one 12"? The only one I can think of is Ultimate's "Touch Me Baby", but there's got to be something earlier than that.

Yes, that's what I'm referring to and I guess Ten Percent would be it since it did have two remixers but it didn't seem that commonplace for two different remixes on one single after that during the 70s was it? What would be the next one after Ten Percent?

All the commercial singles that I can think of had the extended mix and instrumental (or a different song)....the good ol' days when everyone had the same version so every DJ had to be creative in how they'd mix it in. Even into the 80s, there usually was just the one mix and then a dub...Billie Jean, Holiday, The Glamourous Life, I Feel For You, Relax, etc.

[Twirlessence]

Hence, the proliferation of remix services which had their heyday from the late 70's thru to the early 90's. I always thought it was a shame that there weren't more remixes included by the big labels. Of course, then it went to the other extreme in the 90's with sometimes 10-12 remixes on double and triple pack vinyl.

[needlefingers]

Maybe these count..

Instant Funk - I Got My Mind Made Up

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53...item519262c373

The catalogue number is the same as the one in the vault....

http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/456_0_2_0_C/

....but Bernies's copy has a different flip side. Maybe his was the record pool release and the other one, which I have, is the commercial release?

Also

Bonnie Pointer - Heaven Must Have Sent You

http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/669_0_2_0_C/

I have always believed this to be mis-labled as the 5:12 (New Version) is really the LP version, and the 6:59 (LP Version) is actually the "New" remixed, disco version.

[Bernie]

There's a promo 12" of Instant Funk's "I Got My Mind Made Up" at
http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/2645_0_2_0_C/

[discokicks]

Hence, the proliferation of remix services which had their heyday from the late 70's thru to the early 90's. I always thought it was a shame that there weren't more remixes included by the big labels.

I imagine there wasn't much of a call for different mixes back then because the era was so new and explosive...or were some DJs not content? The remix services resulted from the need for re-edited mixes but I'm wondering just when it was that someone said "I think I want to totally make this song feel darker...think I'll remove the strings, beef up the bass and add more percussion". Gibbons and Levan must have been the first visionaries to look at changing the total feel of a song.

There's Bettye Lavette's Doin' The Best That I Can from '78 but the Walter Gibbons mix was released on a second single. And Claudja Barry's Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes had a second single released as well with a longer remix and some added fun but it's almost as if they were done as afterthoughts..."I'm bored with this...let's look at tweaking this and that".

In regards to a single being released with two different mixes by two different DJs, I'm naively thinking that Rhetta Hughes Angel Man from '83 may be one of the earliest commercial releases (???)..."Downtown Version" mixed by Jose Animal Diaz and the "Uptown Version" mixed by Aldo Marin...or were there many before that? Around that time, I also remember singles starting to be released with the "UK version" and the "American version".

[Disco Funk]

Tom Moulton said somewhere that if he mixed the LP, the 12 inch release from it was also the same mix, as well as the version for the promos. He said it was because he wanted people to have the same version they heard in the club available for purchase at the store.

For commercial 12 inch remixes, there were quite a few in those early days, where the album and 12 inch versions sounded different.

BCG - Street Talk & Menage A Trois, remixed from the LP.
Jesse Green - Nice & Slow (the original 45 was a different mix from the 12inch and LP, done before the flutes were added and with an extra set of lyrics not on the remixed version)
Moment of Truth - So Much For Love and Lovin You Is Killing Me (both were alternate mixes from the LP, and the intrumental mix on the flip of So Much For Love was different from the vocal versions on the same 12 inch).
Loleatta Holloway - Hit & Run & We're Getting Stronger, same 12 inch, both remixed by Walter Gibbons.
Faith Hope & Charity - Life Goes On - the LP mix, 45 mix, and 12 inch mixes all different; You're My Peace of Mind from the same LP, as well as Gradually and Positive Thinking, which were on a 4 track EP, all featured David Todd remixes different from the LP.
All of the above were from 1976 or so.
Basically if you saw Walter Gibbons or David Todd's name as the remixer, it sounded different from the LP version.

Pre-commercial promos (i.e. DJ Only) also featured alternate mixes not available on the LPs. Those early 20th Century TCD records feature many alternate mixes, like Ritchie Family's I Want To Dance With You, Dennis Coffey's Finger Lickin Good (7 inch - but longer than the LP), Fire & Rain - Make Love To Me (the extended 45 version sounds more danceable than the LP mix), etc... And then there are all those Tom Moulton remixes for Wand (Undecided Love by The Chequers, Call Me Your Anything Man by Bobby Moore, etc...)

Disco Funk

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

The 1st one I remember as a, knock me outta my chair, honest-to-goodness ***"Remix 12", was the promo/commercial 12" of Roy Thode's remix of POUSSEZ!'s "Come On And Do It" b/w the LP/Alphonse Mouson version. 1979 Vanguard Records. It heavily influenced standard remix-structures, towards a very precise direction.

And, from a DJ's point-of-view, it was the most versatile piece of vinyl, released up-to that point, in Disco music. It was nearly impossible to not be able to program this remix, with just about any other record, at all. (a few years later, Pete Hammond would take this same concept, to it's ultimate conclusion)

***NOTE: I disqualify 1978's "Heaven Must Have Sent You", because the "LP Version" & the "New Remix Version" were actually from two, entirely different recording sessions.

[Bernie]

Stephen,
Great call... How could I have forgotten that great Poussez 12 inch on Vanguard?!

[PierreConstantin]

It wasn't so rare that some songs had a fast version on the A side and a slow version on the B side (more or less like "Heaven must have set you" by Bonnie Pointer); here a 7" from 1976 by Dee Dee Bridgewter, "My prayer". Both versions are on the lp.

[Disco Funk]

Soul Train Gang's 'Soul Train Theme' had two versions on the same LP from 1976, one with vocals singing lyrics, and the other with vocals just doing scat (hence it's called the Scat Version).

Disco Funk