Professor Eddy

Enjoy this week's Billboard soul chart from 1984, ranked from 20 to 1 as a Mixcloud Exclusive ! We are approaching the mid-'80s and almost all of the classic soul artists have disappeared from view, with the exception of one of the all-time greats, Patti Labelle. Her Philly soul ballad If Only You Knew is even at number 1 on the chart ! 😊 The list is dominated by a tight electronic sound. Some hip hop is also emerging with Twilight 22, still categorized as “electro” at the time. It was clear that some big changes in the musical landscape were going on. The track by Patti Labelle is from her LP I'm In Love Again that was released in November 1983. It received critical and commercial success after the album became LaBelle's first to chart the top 40 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number 40 and reaching number 4 on the R&B albums chart, her highest to date at the time. With sales of over 500,000 copies, I'm in Love Again was certified gold by the end of 198...

Pexels Enjoy the disco chart from 15 to 1 on the last day of January 1976, according to one of the leading American music magazines at the time, Record World ! In those days disco was essentially still a short term for upbeat soul and funk. The influence of discotheques grew strongly at the time. Almost half of the tracks on this disco chart were not released as a single yet, but dj’s already knew which songs from albums would become successful. Only one of them, Dance Your Troubles Away by Archie Bell & The Drells, would never see the light of day as a single, not even as a B-side. The infamous Salsoul label was founded by ex-MFSB vibe player Vincent Montana, Jr. He also led The Salsoul Orchestra. Their Ooh I Love It has been sampled in hip hop tracks, such as 50 Cent's Candyshop and Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full , but most notably in Madonna's Vogue .  After playing in a band with Jimi Hendrix and a brief period as a schoolteacher, Hamilton Bohannon was recrui...

Unsplash Enjoy some Golden State treasures and affiliated songs that will bring you back to the golden days of the West Coast scene! 😊 Recently, a large number of artists have been severely affected by the terrible fires in Los Angeles. Fortunately, singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop who is on this cloudcast, was spared this fate. He lived in the Hollywood Hills for 48 years, but moved to Colorado not long ago, leaving the L.A. house to get ready for sale. On Facebook he wrote: “We are safe for now, but it’s been a harrowing ordeal trying to move what’s left out of the LA house. My songbooks, guitars, and other important items that hadn’t been moved yet—thankfully, we were able to get them all.” British singer Steve Harley is best known for his 1975 UK number 1 Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) . In the late 1970s he moved to Los Angeles, after his friend Rod Stewart advised him to do so. He tried to crack the US market, but it did not work out the way he had planned. On his album Hobo...

Adam Holtrop Relive the golden years of seventies glam rock as a Mixcloud Exclusive ! 😊 John Lennon once called glam rock “just rock & roll with lipstick on”, according to David Bowie in an interview. The keywords for this seventies music style were fun, energy and extravaganza. Popular acts were Slade, Sweet, Mud, David Bowie and the inventors of the genre, T-Rex. Marc Bolan, the frontman of the band, accidentally put some glitters on his face for a Top Of The Pops performance in 1971 and glam rock was born. Around the mid-seventies tables turned when disco and punk gained popularity in favour of glam rock, although disco and punk borrowed heavily from the genre. Disco took the looks and punk the simplicity of the music. The New Romantic movement, which started as a fashion subculture in British nightclubs in the late 1970s, before becoming a mainstream music genre a few years later, was also inspired by the visuals of the glam rock era. And today’s superstar Chappell Roan is cle...

Enjoy the R&B Top 40 from 40 to 1, dated on January 16th 1982, according to American music magazine Cashbox , the main competitor of Billboard at the time. There are quite a few veteran artists on this chart, like Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight, but a new, more electronic oriented generation is already knocking on the door, most prominently Prince. In the aftermath of their dispute about their copyrights, Daryl Hall claimed in a recent interview that almost all of the Hall & Oates songs are his compositions. According to him only three songs were collaborations with Oates, She’s Gone and Out Of Touch being two of them. John Oates said that he had the initial ideas for both songs and that they worked them out together. Daryl Hall sketched out the basics for I Can’t Go For That one evening at a music studio in New York City, in 1981, after a recording session for the Private Eyes album. Being on his own he randomly switched on the Rock 1 knob on a Roland drum...

Pixabay Enjoy light-hearted soul, pop and (yacht) rock from the seventies on this new Sunshine Radio part! Again songs from the era mixed with original jingles and air checks.  The title of this cloudcast is partly inspired by a very violent scene in Quintin Tarantino’s movie Reservoir Dogs with a radio playing Stealers Wheel in the background (the radio show is called Super Sounds Of The Seventies ) and I included a sample from that scene as well. The funk band Street Feet released only one album and then teamed up with singer Sharon Robinson in 1977. At the time she was reluctant to use her own name on her album for tax shelter issues with her label. Since her middle name is Terea, as it was said, this became the project name as well. Later on Sharon Robison toured as background vocalist with Leonard Cohen and wrote songs for big names in the industry like Diana Ross, Patti Labelle, Brenda Russell and Michael Bolton.  In 1978 Dane Donohue, the lost prince of yacht rock, r...