Professor Eddy

'Mellow 80s Moods' starts with a fragment from the movie 'Back to the Future'. It stars Michael J. Fox as teenager Marty McFly, who is sent back in time to 1955, where he meets his future parents in high school and accidentally becomes his mother's romantic interest. Christopher Lloyd portrays the eccentric scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, Marty's friend who helps him repair the damage to history by helping Marty cause his parents to fall in love. Marty and Doc must also find a way to return Marty to 1985. Back to the Future was released on July 3, 1985, grossing over $381 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1985. Enjoy this new Mellow Moods episode by The Smooth Operators ! Tracklist: Hall & Oates – Maneater (1982) Earth, Wind & Fire – And Love Goes On (1980) Little River Band – You’re Driving Me Out Of My Mind (1983) Brenda Russell – I Want Love To Find Me (1983) Prefab Sprout – Cars And Girls (1988) David...

A soulful and chilled out tribute to yacht rock is the 10th part of Covered . In my view yacht rock was some kind of West Coast rock variant of soul music (or a soulful variant of West Coast rock), which was played by blue-eyed-soul artists like The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates. Because of its soulfulness quite a few R&B artists covered yacht rock songs in an even more soulful way, like Maxine Nightingale did with the Ned Doheny song. And the biggest heroes of Thundercat are Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald! His song ‘Show you the way’ came out last week. Aretha Franklin’s version of ‘What a fool believes’ is nice and danceable, but for some reason it is not as intense and soulful as the one from Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers, even though Aretha is often called ‘the Queen of Soul’. It was recorded in 1980 when Aretha did not know where to go to with her career, but her voice was still great at that time. Enjoy the funky chill side of yacht...

Johnny Bristol ('Strangers') The other day I finally laid my hands on a vinyl copy of the first (and only) Moment of Truth album! All the songs were co-written, produced, arranged and conducted by Norman Bergen, the guy who also co-wrote 'Only a fool (breaks his own heart)' by Mighty Sparrow. On his website he wrote about his disco years: "In the early 70s, I started working with Reid Whitelaw, a talented songwriter, producer, and businessman. We liked many of the same pop/rhythm and blues recordings of the sixties, especially the Motown records of the Temptations and Four Tops; so it was natural for us to write and produce songs which were reminiscent of that era. We were soon told by a man named Tom Moulton that we were creating good dance, or disco records. With Moulton’s help, it soon became a reality, with a number of our records doing well on that circuit." About the album he wrote me recently that "Helplessly" has been sampled a few tim...

Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye (Jim Britt) Motown moved all of its operations to Los Angeles in June 1972, with a number of artists, among them Martha Reeves, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Motown's Funk Brothers studio band, either staying behind in Detroit or leaving the company for other reasons. By re-locating, Motown aimed chiefly to branch out into the motion-picture industry, and Motown Productions got its start in film by turning out two hit-vehicles for Diana Ross: the Billie Holiday biographical film 'Lady Sings the Blues' (1972), and 'Mahogany' (1975). The typical Motown sound disappeared because of those priority changes, but the company still produced great records, like the ones from Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and discovered new artists, like Rick James and The Commodores. 'Ain't It Funny (How Things Turn Around)' was made during the sessions for Marvin Gaye's masterpiece 'Here my dear'. The theme of the...

To celebrate one million plays on re-think radio Mixcloud, I uploaded a special Mellow Moods episode. The Smooth Operators return with a salute to the golden days of American FM radio. Enjoy! On this cloudcast there’s a tribute to famous dj Wolfman Jack by Canadian band The Guess Who (Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive fame had left the band at that time). Wolfman Jack was especially popular in the 1960s and 1970s. In the early days, Wolfman Jack made sporadic public appearances, usually as a Master of Ceremonies (an "MC") for rock bands at local Los Angeles clubs. At each appearance he looked a little different because Smith hadn't decided on what the Wolfman should look like. Early pictures show him with a goatee, however, sometimes he combed his straight hair forward and added dark makeup to look somewhat "ethnic". Other times he had a big afro wig and large sunglasses. The ambiguity of his race contributed to the controversy of his program. It wa...

Let’s leave 2016 with sounds from the last years of the jukebox era (1965-1975). Around the mid-seventies disco took over and dance music was played more and more at big, crowdy clubs instead of intimate local bars and cafes. From then the jukebox, an early version of Spotify, slowly disappeared out of sight. Some of the songs clearly give away that disco was not far away to take over, like the ones from The O’Jays, Billy Paul and Van McCoy, but The Trammps show perhaps best the transition from the soul era to the disco days. Jimmy Ellis did the soulful, gospel influenced vocals and the uptempo music was played by Ronnie Baker (bass), Norman Harris (guitar) and Earl Young (drums), also main members of MFSB, house band of the Philadelphia International label The first recordings of the Trammps were not very successful, except for 'Hold Back The Night', which was a hit in the UK and on the Billboard R&B chart in 1973, before a re-release saw it climb the Billboard Hot 100 ...

@joansmalls Instagram Enjoy this Holiday episode of Smooth Sailing ! One of the tracks I selected is 'Reasons' by Minnie Riperton. It was the first single from her album 'Perfect angel'. The song was embraced by rock stations, but R&B radio weren’t too keen on the heavy guitars. Sales of the album started slow, and her record label was ready to move on to the next project. However, a few MOR (Middle Of the Road) radio stations were playing 'Lovin' You' (about daughter Maya) as an album track. Her record company released it as a single and it made a slow three-month climb to #1 on the American pop charts in April 1975 (#3 R&B). It went to #9 on the Dutch charts a few months later. Nowadays this classic soul song has been covered and sampled dozens of times. Dutch-born Thomas Azier makes moody yet highly dynamic synth pop centered on his robust, often melancholic singing voice. Born in the Netherlands, Azier moved to Berlin at age 19 to pursue a...