Hailing from the City of Brotherly Love Blue Magic formed in 1973 when former Delfonic Randy Cain went in to the studio with singer-songwriter Ted Mills.
Signed to Atco/Atlantic Records in the same year. Blue Magic were one of the earliest acts produced by Norman Harris & had the very talented backing of the the MFSB house band.
Unreleased edits of “Welcome to the Club” circulated in Chicago during the early 1980s
Hailing from Chicago South Shore Commission signed with New York-based Scepter Records, recording for their Wand subsidiary.
Their biggest hit was “Free Man” released in 1975, and they charted twice more in the next year with “We’re On The Right Track” and “Train Called Freedom”. They released one album the self-titled South Shore Commission, this long player was recorded in Philadelphia with Bunny Sigler and also in Hollywood.
Tom Moulton remixed freeman with the original reference disc cut on a 12″ rather than a 7″ - now there has been many a disco dedbate as to whether a 12 inch of this track actually exists. In an interview with Al Kent of www.millliondollardisco.com according to Tom there was never a test pressing, supposedly 10 acetates were given to DJs like David Mancuso, Walter Gibbons and merely a handful of others.
In the same interview Tom reckons Private Stock made the first move to release a 12 inch promo record for DJs with swearin’ to god (see previous post).
This is meant to be the unreleased acetate version, then again who knows, what we do know is it’s a real disco belter…
The Trammps, based in Philadelphia are remembered as a disco band. Often seen as part of the disco overground, most likely a result of ‘Disco Inferno’ being included on the massively popular Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in 1977.
In the same year the Trammps released the song ‘The Night the Lights Went Out’ to commemorate the electrical blackout that affected New York on 13 July 1977. This song was housed-up by the Black Science Orchestra, as the basis for their debut single ‘Where Were You’ released on Junior Boy’s Own.
Prior to their disco fame the Trammps released Rubber Band as a single in 1973 on Buddah a real soul gem that has featured on more than one occassion in modern hip-hop.
It was sampled as the basis for the Game’s release ‘Hate It Or Love It’ getting re-worked & chopped-up by the legendary production team of Cool & Dr.Dre. J Dilla (rip) used it for ‘Dilla Says Go’ from Donuts.
Yet another re-working here we have the editions disco edit of rubber band. a real fave at love unlimited towers.
Here we have a performance of the philly classic backstabbers, if you get chance check out Tailgate by 21st Creation on motown records for a killer piece of heavy disco that deals with the same subject matter.
Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love has produced some amazing emotional soul & disco. Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes contributed massively to this output on the tsop label with global hits like “The Love I Lost” & “Don’t Leave Me This Way” through to socially conscious songs such as “Wake Up Everybody” and “Bad Luck”
They departed Philadelphia International for ABC Records, based in New York in 1977. “Reaching for the World” became the group’s final major single…Emotional Stuff.
