Professor Eddy

Pexels Enjoy the “quiet storm” mood of this funky chillout night session! The track by Esther Phillips is from the new Too Slow To Disco compilation Yacht Soul 2 . To be honest, I think the term yacht soul is quite ambiguous and most of the times it is used to play pure soul or disco tracks, like Shalamar, which has nothing to do with the original concept of yacht rock at all. The term has become blurry, if there is no “yacht” connection. However, DJ Supermarkt has found that connection by selecting soul covers of well-known yacht rock songs: “The pure Yacht Rock fans sometimes don’t appreciate the black music part. That’s why I never used that expression on our compilations, instead went for Yacht Pop. To me that integration of soul, jazz, funk is the essence of the part of YACHT music I like. That soulful vibe was already all over the other TOO SLOW TO DISCO compilations. So for me it wasn’t a big step. But for some it is….” (DJ Supermarkt / Westcoastsoul.de) On February 2, 2024 th...

Enjoy the 40 best of this week's Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart from 1979! It was all in there: soul, funk, disco and with the early hip hop from Fatback and Sugar Hill Gang you could catch a glimpse of the future in it as well. The eighties were definitely not far away. "The Commodores' sublime and soulful "Still" moves into the top singles spot on the Hot 100 this week, becoming the Motown family of labels’ 45th to hit No.1 pop. It's often said that Motown had its real heyday in the '60s— and of course it did in that era when there was far less competition from majors like CBS and Warners— but the company has actually had more chart-topping singles in the ‘70s, by a margin of 25 to 20.” (Billboard Magazine 11-17-1979) Tracklist: Phyllis Hyman – You Know How To Love Me Dynasty – I Don’t Want To Be A Freak Archie Bell & The Drells – Strategy Peaches & Herb – Roller-Skatin' Mate Lowrell – Mellow Mellow, Right On Spinners – Body Languag...

Pexels Look outside and watch the falling leaves and early sun downs: this is the AOR soundtrack to this year’s autumn by The Smooth Operators (Martijn Soetens and I) 😊 Enjoy some soft rock with a touch of soul! Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel are best known for their UK number one hit (Come Up And See Me) Make Me Smile in 1975. The song came from their album The Best Years Of Our Lives and was co-produced by then relatively unknown engineer Alan Parsons. Their pretty funky track White, White Dove was released a year later as the final single from their next LP Timeless Flight . The track was written and produced by Harley himself.  White, White Dov e was the second single from the album , after Black Or White had failed to chart. White, White Dove came out shortly after Timeless Flight , but despite the album's top 20 success in the UK, the single did not reach the UK top 50 either. However, the same year Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel would return to the UK top 10, ...

Enjoy the 15 best disco tracks in the US on this day in 1979!  What is striking in this Billboard disco list compared to the one from 1976 that I uploaded  last month is that the number of soul acts has fallen enormously in favour of electronic acts, most notably the ones led by synthesizer genius Giorgio Moroder (Suzi Lane, Giorgio, Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand). Soul and disco were definitively two different genres in 1979.  The lead singer of Front Page, the opening track, is Sharon Redd. The next decade she became world famous as a solo artist ( Can You Handle It ). Front Page was a so-called "studio act", which was typical for the later years of the disco era. Producers hired musicians to play on one-off projects. Destination is another example of a one-off studio act. It was led and produced by Elton Farokh Ahi. Tracklist: Front Page – Love Insurance Queen Samantha – Take A Chance Stargard – Wear It Out Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Is...

Pexels Enjoy music from and inspired by the era of cassettes, videotheques and radio requests! 😊 For some reason British duo Dollar were only successful in the UK. In the Netherlands, for instance, they did not have any hits. Only their debut single Shooting Star stuck in the bubbling under list, but in their decade-long career, Dollar sold over 10 million records in their home country. In 1978, when Thereza Bazar and David Van Day started, after they had left Guys 'n' Dolls, the duo were at the forefront of electro pop and a few years later they were one of the first to use to the potential of producer Trevor Horn. He became later known as “the man who invented the eighties”. In 1986, after the two of them had attempted to go solo with limited success, Dollar began releasing singles again. With some help from then successful producers team Stock, Aitken and Waterman they reached the charts once more with O L'Amour in late 1987. When their attempt for a successful follow...