WAX POETICS - AMIR ABDULLAH RECORD DIGGING IN NYC

'MYSTIC VOYAGE' - DISCOVERING THE MUSIC OF THE LEGENDARY ROY AYERS - (PART 1)

I'm Dj'ing at the Roy Ayers gig @ The Jazz Cafe, Camden, London tonight (30th January 2009) and whilst most people know me as a Hip Hop Dj there's a whole load of other music I like to collect, listen to and play out.

During the Christmas period I was enjoying a bit of quality daydreaming (like you do when you're most chilled), thinking about how I first discovered Roy Ayers and his music and how the love for his music developed.

Yes I know everyone's gonna have their favorite Roy Ayers LP or song, but this is my own personal, journey discovering the legendary sound of Roy Ayers.

For the most part discovering Roy has been during a period when there was no internet to tell you his whole Discography, I didn't even have the luxuary of a big network of music friends that I have now. In those days it was just me and Matt Smooth (who I went to school with and is DJ'ing the gig the night before) discovering records, tapes and radio shows from a handful of like minded funksters.

The 80's

I discovered Roy Ayers not during the cooler fusion sound of the 70's (Come on!!! I was too young) but in the era of the electronic synthesizer, during the mid-eighties (The period when I first started buying vinyl from places like Bluebird Records in Luton)

At the time I was a big fan of Martin Collins's soulful Chiltern Radio show and Robbie Vincent's Sunday 'Soul Show' show which I used to tape passionately every week. So I think the first song I heard by Roy was Fast Money (1983). The only problem was it was on a school tape and I wasn't sure who all the artists were ?!!? So more of that later.

So fast forward to 1985 and I probably made my first official note of Roy and his music listening to the LP You Might be Surprised.

In those days not all shops stocked this type of vinyl so after making a note of some of my favorite music I often made what I thought were exciting trips on the bus to Luton!!..... to Bluebird Records where Gary and Tim (who later went on to run Soulsense) would serve up and play the best black music being released from that era. These were great times, always a good place to visit and it was my first experience of 'hanging out' and learning about music in record shops. Something that has been a big part of my life ever since.

As an 18 year old and before I had discovered much of Roy Ayers, I remember being impressed with the fact he could not only sing (his silky voice was unique), but he also played the vibraphone.

I have to admit I didn't immediately see someone who played the vibraphone as cool, but he certainly changed my preconceived ideas!

Stand out tracks on this LP were the spoken word and computer inspired Programmed for Love



And the song 'Slip and Slide'


It's interesting to note that at this point in the 80's when home computers like the Spectrum, BBC and Commodore 64 were being bought by parents for their eager kids, that there were quite a few songs like Programmed for Love which had references to computers on them. The Zapp band's vocoder led Computer Love also springs to mind.

So that was the first LP I bought, but, going back to my first experience (above), the first Roy Ayers 12" I bought was probably Fast Money (On Ichiban, originally a Hip Hop label from Georgia US, which also and had the excellent Black Family on the B side ). Fast Money was originally on Roy's Lots of Love LP from 1983. I absolutely love this track and it could well be one of my favorite Roy Ayers tracks.



The track has such a great synth bassline which still inspires me today, it was made to dance to! So I reckon I bought this in the late 80's from David's Music in Letchworth, Herts via Mail Order, after I had discovered the name of the track on the tape I had made 4 or 5 years earlier!! Sometimes music that you love is revealed to you later than you wish, but at least I eventually found out.

B-Side to my first 12" - Black Family - which uses a sample from Fela Kuti's I.T.T.



Continuing to listen to the radio and wanting to support Roy's next LP, in 1987 I bought I'm the One (For your Love Tonight). Not particularly Roy's best LP but there was still one song I had on repeat when I bought it, which was the dreamy Blue Summer. (Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent Youtube link?!!?)

In the same year Roy also appeared on another track that was getting a lot of air play Miles Jaye - Lets Start Love Over


This was another song and LP that got repeated on my Mum and Dad's home stereo and I loved Roy's vibraphone solo 3 minutes into the song!!

'MYSTIC VOYAGE' - DISCOVERING THE MUSIC OF THE LEGENDARY ROY AYERS : (PART 2)

Re-issues,'Rare Groove' and the Resurgence of Blaxploitation

Towards the late 80's early 90's there was a massive resurgence in old funk, soul and jazz songs, perhaps more popularly known then as Rare Groove and all of a sudden labels like Urban emerged and Roy Ayers fans were able to experience more classic Roy Ayers tunes (known in the 70's as Roy Ayers Ubiquity) on vinyl.

The first LP to be released on the Urban re-issue label was Roy Ayers most well known song and same titled LP Everybody Loves the Sunshine An absolute classic LP of music!! A memorable yellow cover and song that would be sampled, played, listened to and loved for years to come.



Urban also released Roy's funky dance floor number Brother Green on the Urban 2 compilation in 1987, in those days I used to buy these albums from shops such as Our Price Records where you could buy things like Hip Hop 7"s, Paul Winley's Super Disco Breaks and Cut out and Deletions with the corner of the cover cut off in a triangle. Unfortunately Our Price, like so many record shops, are now non existent. :(

Urban continued to release Roy Ayers songs and I picked up 7"s of Can't you see Me and Love will Bring Us Back Together.



During the 90's there was also a big resurgence in Blaxploitation movies. Films aimed at the black market. They were not only action packed and entertaining, the music was often very soulful and funky and was the main reason I enjoyed the films. One such film was Coffy which soundtrack was composed by none other than Roy Ayers!!



With the popularity of the Rare Groove movement and the Blaxploitation resurgence many of Roy's LP's were re-released on both CD and Vinyl, Firstly in the 90's and even more recently in the Noughties!

Two more LP's purchased and should be mentioned are:-

He's Coming (Polydor, 1972) including He's a Superstar and We Live in Brooklyn.






and Virgo Red (Polydor, 1973) including the amazing Love from the Sun. A track in my Top 3 Roy Ayers tunes!

'MYSTIC VOYAGE' - DISCOVERING THE MUSIC OF THE LEGENDARY ROY AYERS : (PART 3)

Discovering Roy Ayers Originals in the 90's - Record Collecting in the UK.

In the early 90's I lived in South London, on the edge of Blackheath, (opposite Glen Tilbrook from Squeeze) and I used to make journeys to a number of sources for records.

One was Cavern Records in Lewisham shopping centre - a place where I first met the rapper Blade on numerous occasions. Another was Greenwich market - a perfect place to pick up old 70's LP's and rare Hip Hop 12"s and lastly there was Collections (pictured here) I can't remember the bloke who ran it but I always remember his long leather coat and long hair. Nice guy, who had a turntable so you could listen to the music too.

It was at Collections that I bought 2 more original Roy Ayers LP's

Red, Black and Green (Polydor, 1973)





Favourite tracks on the LP were Ain't No Sunshine and Papa was a Rolling Stone, although the most well known is probably the title track.

http://www.discogs.com/Roy-Ayers-Ubiquity-Red-Black-Green/release/380129?ev=rr



Being into Hip Hop these LP's were also of interest to me for being the original sources for Hip Hop artists to sample. So songs like Red, Black and Green took me all the way to the X-Clan who sampled the song for Raise the Flag on the excellent political To the East Blackwards LP



The other LP I bought from Collections was A Tear to a Smile (Polydor, 1975).


Listen Here"-

http://www.discogs.com/Roy-Ayers-Ubiquity-A-Tear-To-A-Smile/release/499373
















After starting to think I knew a lot about Roy Ayers I discovered the Silver Vibrations LP (Uno Melodic Records, 1983) at my favourite Hertfordshire spot for old vinyl, David's Music. I didn't know anything about this LP when I bought it in David's Music. But it contains one of my all time favourite Roy Ayers songs Chicago.



Around the same time I also picked up a 12" of Running Away @ Davids Music which also appears on the Lifeline (Polydor, 1977) LP that I also own I reckon is probably my most played Roy Ayers track as it always gets a people moving and shaking on the dance floor.



Sometimes I'd discover Roy Ayers on other songs, one example is the Ladies of the 80's 12" I bought featuring Turned Onto You. on (Streetwave) I was pleasantly surprised to see not only that Sylvia Striplin was the main vocalist but also Roy was the writer and producer on the whole LP which also included the excellent B-side of my single, I Knew that Love, a song I love almost as much as Turned Onto You.

'MYSTIC VOYAGE' - DISCOVERING THE MUSIC OF THE LEGENDARY ROY AYERS : (PART 4)

Record Hunting - finding Roy originals abroad.

I've been lucky enough to go record collecting in the US, Canada and Europe too. In 1993 I went to Vancouver for a month and stayed for much of my time with Lisa Auger, who now coincidently manages the Jazz Cafe. During my time there I was enjoying record collection at local record fairs in Vancouver, walking along Hastings visiting Chinese Second Hand shops and taking longer trips in the car to Seattle to buy more Jazz, Funk, Latin and Soul records. In fact I spent most of my time in Vancouver record collecting.

It was in Vancouver that I managed to find a copy of Mystic Voyage (Polydor, 1975). This LP is probably one of Roy's finest and contained tracks such as the previously mentioned Brother Green and the very funky Life is just a moment Part 2.



But I remember this LP most of all because Lisa loved Take all the Time You need



Interestingly this track was originally written and performed by Ashford and Simpson on their 1974 LP "I Wanna be Selfish" which I only recently found in a second hand shop for $1 in Stowe in Vermont on the Eastern side of the USA.

Click the photo (below) to go on my Facebook page for more info.

http://www.discogs.com/Ashford-Simpson-I-Wanna-Be-Selfish/master/90276

As well as finding out that Mr Ayers had re-invented older versions of songs I also discovered he appeared on other artists Albums, namely Herbie Mann.

I picked this LP up in Seattle on my Vancouver trip in 1993.

Herbie Mann - Live At the Whiskey A Go Go



And I picked this LP up on my last crate digging session along the West Coast of America in 2008, it also features the vibraphone skills of Roy Ayers.

Herbie Mann - Windows Opened

Click the Pic to go to my Facebook page to read a little more about my trip.