Friday, January 20, 2006

Disco Delivery #3:
Frisky (1979, Vanguard)



Frisky - You've Got Me Dancing In My Sleep
Frisky - Burn Me Up (With Your Love)

This week a couple tracks from a studio project by the production team of Moses Dillard and Jesse Boyce. Dillard & Boyce seem to have been a pretty prominent team in the disco scene having produced such studio projects like Saturday Night Band, Constellation Orchestra and singers like Lorraine Johnson and Bill Brandon. Pretty much all of their disco productions were done for the Prelude label, but they went over to the Vanguard label for this outing. Prior to disco, Vanguard was already a well-established label with a past in Jazz, Rock and Folk (Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie to name a couple), but for a brief period in the late '70s and early '80s tried their hand at the disco sound. While they never really established their place in disco like the big three New York indies (Prelude, West End and Salsoul), they had managed to put out some quality disco productions like Poussez, Players Association, Roni Griffith, and Alisha to name a few..

The Frisky album is probably one of my favourite Dillard & Boyce productions. "You've Got Me Dancing In My Sleep" is probably one of their best remembered cuts. Strangely, it was originally the B-side to "Burn Me Up..," but ended up overtaking the A-side as the favourite.. Really love the tight, bouncy production, and that euphoric energy that this song has. "Burn Me Up (With Your Love)" is also a great cut; a little slower than "..Dancing In My Sleep" but with a sexier, funkier sound to it.. Another thing I like about these two tracks in particular is that the sounds they use (particularly the synths and sound effects) are a little more varied than some of their previous stuff, but still with that signature Dillard & Boyce sound (sharp string sound, and prominent horns to name a couple elements).. I'll definitely be putting more of their stuff up on here in the future. In the meantime, enjoy these two..

* * Thanks to David @ Reports from the Edge and Digital Eargasm for linking me :-). Also, I'm trying a new file storage service on this post, let me know if there are any problems..

LINKS:
FRISKY LP @ DISCOMUSIC.COM
VANGUARD RECORDS @ DISCO-DISCO.COM
VANGUARD RECORDS @ HOTDISCOMIX.DE

PURCHASE:
VA - JUMPIN' II (CONTAINS "YOU'VE GOT ME DANCING IN MY SLEEP")

CATEGORIES: DISCO DELIVERIES

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loving these tracks. Heard the first on a Paul Trouble Anderson show in the 90's. Always wondered who it was, now I know ! What a build up ! Thanks for your great site. A fellow lover of disco music.

JMG said...

Another winning post. I wasn't such a big fan of the producers, outside of Lorraine Johnson's "Learning To Dance All Over Again" and Roni Griffith's "Best Part Of Breaking Up". Oh wait, Alisha's "Baby Talk" was pretty good. Maybe I *am* a bigger fan than I realized. :)

Tommy said...

Thanks, glad you both liked :-)

I've never heard of Paul "Trouble" Anderson before, just did a search on him, looks like someone I need to check out..

I like the Lorraine Johnson stuff they did too, "Learning to Dance.." and "Feed The Flame," but Roni Griffith and Alisha were both done by different producers (Bobby O and Mark Berry, respectively).. I just mentioned them since they were all notable disco/dance acts on the same label.. I shoulda been more specific :-)

David said...

Hey, you're welcome. Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Hi Tommy, This is Mark Berry...I engineered and mixed many Vanguard Records releases including Alisha and Frisky...was looking for a copy of Dancing In My Sleep by Frisky..any ideas???

MARK
attackgroup@gmail.com

Tommy said...

Great to hear from you, Mark! I recall reading your interview on disco-disco.com several years back.. I'll be sending you an email shortly with some links..

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