Not 'disco,' not yet 'house': bulding the bridge

[The Boogie Doctor]

Hey y'all! Just starting a thread on what I deem to be the most interesting and best period of dance music, namely, the tracks released from around 1982 through until 1985, which bridged the gap between disco and house. The tracks were not disco, as they had definitely begun to incorporate artifical sounds into their content, but were definitely not yet house, as the productions, albeit a little stripped down, were not as raw or as artifical as house. Some tracks off the top of my head that fit the bill are:

Sinnamon - Thanks To You
Peech Boys - Don't Make Me Wait
Chemise - She Can't Love You
Surface - Falling In Love
Central Line - Don't Tell Me
Imagination - Changes/Burning Up
Rene & Angela - Street Of Desire LP

Was this not the best period of dance music? And what other tracks might you add to this list??

Yours in deep grooving
The Boogie Doctor

[SandraDee]

This early to mid-80s period did throw up some very interesting material, i think because it all went very underground just like when it started in the early 70s. You should listen to some of the Prelude material from this period such as 'The Music Got Me' by Visual from '83 - this track was so ahead of it's time, if you didn't know you'd swear it was from '86/'87 as it sounds very much like something JM Silk or Colonel Abrams would've done IMO. I personally feel that some of the semi hip hop stuff from this time has dated badly such as Shannon Herbie's Rockit but other stuff like Feel Alright by Komiko & You Cant Run From My Love by Stephanie Mills sound fabulous & full of character. This genre & period is often given the collective term 'boogie' by some people.

[ALBATROS]

Hey there!

I am still considering the music from early 80's as Disco. It still had that typical "feel", and by comparison, there is big difference between from say early genuine House music and contemporary House music, but we still call it House. The sound evolves - this is normal.
I totally agree that this was definately the best period of dance music.
I would call the music from your list as N.Y. Garage. The song "Falling in Love" from Surface is absolutely fabolous. Here is my 5 cents to your list;

Pennye Ford - Change Your Wicked Ways
Alfie Silas - Communicate
Alma Faye - Don't Fall in Love
Sly Cabell - Fellin Fine
Fantasy - You're Too Late
Chaz Jankel - You're My Occupation
Gino Soccio - Try it out
Bad Girls - Too Trough
Larry Graham - Sooner Or Later
Gayle Adams - Plain Out Of Luck

Albatros

[QUINNY]

I LOVED the music of the early - mid '80s between Disco and House, often referred to as boogie. It's probably my favourite dance music after lowdown, dirty funk grooves.

However, I find it difficult to know excatly what constitutes boogie, in my own mind, or which records link to House.

For instance, would you really consider Surface - Falling In Love as a link between Disco and House, or to put it another way, pre- House? For me, it has an individual sound that's like no other record. I don't see where it fits in. Likewise, Gino Soccio - Try It Out which has no link to House whatsoever IMO (one of my absolute faves, but were House records ever made at such a low BPM?) and is a pure disco funk/Good Times clone.

Here's some of my faves, if they fit......good. Most are c. 120 BPM +/- 3 BPM.

Tony Cook & Party People - (Out On The Floor) Rock It (instr./side 2)
Jimmy Young - Times Are Tight (instr.)
Strikers - Body Music
Midway - Set It Out (instr.)
Electric Mind - Can We Go (instr. side Zwei can work too)
NV - It's Alright
Aurra - Happy Feeling
Russ Brown - Gotta Find A Way
Blue Feather - It's Love (B side to Let's Funk Tonight and even better IMO)
Skyy - Givin' It To You
Eugene Record - Magnetism (from 1979, but from the break on it could work, even today...so many possibilities to loop and alter)
Roy Ayers - Goree Island (sounds sooo contemporary)
Hot Streak - Body Work
Simplicious - Let Her Feel It
THS - Lady Shine
Captain Rapp - Bad Times
Nick Straker Band - Straight Ahead / A Little Bit Of Jazz
Eugene Wilde - Chey Chey Kule
Armenta - I Wanna Be With You
Elektrik Funk - On A journey (We Sing The Funk Electric)
Alton Edwards - I Just Wanna Spend Some Time With You
War - You Got The Power
Brass Construction - Walkin' The Line
Flakes - Sugar Frosted Lover

Plus maybe a hundred others I just can't think of right now.

BTW: I uncovered the ultimate RAP p-take of a record the other day.....
Barnsley Bill - Barnsley Rap on Mother-In-Law records, the instrumental 'B' side of which is a monster funk/boogie groove (but ultimately boring as it goes on too long and there's not much variation)......Tripe & chips anyone???? Eee By Gum..it were a biggun' upt' North on't Sheffield radio.

[buckaroo]

Originally Posted by The Boogie Doctor

...
Was this not the best period of dance music?

Indeed it was. I sorely miss those years . There was so much great music around. These are some of the tracks which turned me on, circa 1982 - '83:

The Extra Ts E.T.
Maxine Singleton Don't You Love it.
Howard Johnson So Fine

[Simon White]

Funny old world innit.

I'm seeing little on the lists posted that I would think of as having an early house sound. Most (well the ones I know at least) seem to be pretty straight ahead Dance /Soul from the period of music which, by then had become largely electronic And surely the turning point record from big strings and things to the electronic sounding records has to be D Train "You're The One For Me" with it's big solid beat and huge vocal. A lot of other things on the lists are early - ish electronic type dance records with a broken beat.

Good call on Visual 'The Musics Got Me ' though Sandra... a particular rolling bass line and a consistent beat...sounds right to me. It and another track, ''Some How Some Way' are included on a 1989 CD called 'Rare Preludes Vol 1 ' and they talk about the influences on 'Garage' in the brief sleevenotes. The tracks on the CD were only a few years old at the time tho and some work better than others. Using Gayle Adams 'I Don't Wanna Hear It' as an example, as they do on this CD to my mind means then you have to start using a whole load of other pretty straight forward girl tracks from the same period surely ?
But to me the essence of the best early house stuff was very much about the beat...just as it was in classic disco and dare I say it, high energy. Given that the whole House/Garage scene was driven by excitement and eventually drugs, then that faster tempo and the emotional peaks and highs of the best Disco records became pretty essential in Garage or House before it split into all the other genres. Tempo's in general were slower on the average dance sound of the period from apx 1982-1986..house took the tempo and sheer drive back up
So the often mentioned influencial examples like Harry Thumann 'Underwater' and Katmandu 'The Breaks' plus the Patrick Cowley Donna Summer remix all work as good examples for me. The sampling and covering at the time of so many old tracks seems to bear this
out ?

An interesting thread this !

[marmite7]

I'd have to agree with Quinney on the Tony Cook track, as it does have that House feel to it, but I'd also like to add Simplicious - Let Her Feel It & Skipworth & Turner's - Something About Your Love as two mid 80's tunes which stand out for me