During 1978, the idea of a live disco album seemed almost laughable; that the album was by the crowned Queen of Disco, Donna Summer, whose studio creations were polished to a futuristic gloss never seen before by producer/writers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, seemed unheard of. The naysayers forgot, however, that Donna Summer possessed one of the finest voices not only in disco, but in all of pop music. The live portion of this tri-folded LP combines Summer classics with unexpected but excellent covers of standards like "The Way We Were," and a medley of "The Man I Love" and "I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good." The studio material includes Summer's theme to The Deep, "Deep Down Inside" and the sublime 17-minute version of "MacArthur Park Suite" The entire LP was mostly recorded live at the Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, California. The band during this recording included: Donna Summer (vocals); Mike Warren, Peter Woodford (guitar); John Santulis (violin); Dick Spencer (alto saxophone); Don Menza (tenor saxophone); Joe Romano (baritone saxophone); Bobby Shew (trumpet); Bruce Paulson (trombone); Doug Livingston (keyboards); Sal Guglielmi (bass); Keith Forsey, Richard Edelman (drums, percussion). I truly enjoy listening occasionally to this live recording on vinyl from start to finish. On that same year, disco and Hi-NRG pioneer Patrick Cowley created a 15:45 remix of "I Feel Love" which, despite not impressing Moroder, became a popular "underground classic" available only on acetate discs. The remix used loops, keeping the song's bass-line going for extended passages of overdubbed effects and synthesiser parts.In mid-1980, Cowley's mix was released with the title "I Feel Love / I Feel Megalove" and subtitle "The Patrick Cowley MegaMix", but only on a limited vinyl pressing by the DJ-only subscription service Disconet. Since this pressing was not available to the general public for commercial sale, it became highly sought after by collectors.In 1982 the mix was released on a commercially available 12" single in the UK market by Casablanca, backed with an 8-minute edited version. With this wider release, "I Feel Love" became a dance floor hit again, five years after its debut. A further-edited 7" single reached #21 on the UK singles chart. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment