The disco reissue program instigated by Deano Sounds and Boston’s Cultures of Soul label continues with Tropical Disco Hustle, a swell 2LP/CD compilation focusing on the crosspollination of Caribbean styles and a genre that for a few years took not just the USA but much of the globe by storm. Focusing heavily on Trinidad with asides into the Bahamas and Jamaica, this release is worthwhile for both armchair musical archeologists and those looking to showcase some moves on the dance floor.
Tropical Disco Hustle is well-assembled, informative, and largely about stylistic hybridization. Sticklers over the genre may regard the numerous blends offered here to varying degrees disappointing as others evaluate the songs as rampant opportunism. Both considerations are understandable, but the best of this comp doesn’t exploit trends as much as it decorates a bandwagon for a celebratory Carnival parade; finding vibrant hunks of pure disco outside of the country of its birth wouldn’t be likely at this late date, anyway.
The name of Trinidadian studio group Odessey One was a play on words based on the title of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the naturally highly rhythmic “Dance with Me” features washes of synth that would nicely accompany the credits sequences to any number of ‘80s direct-to-VHS low-budget action flicks. These elements are interestingly weaved into further keyboard-derived techno-textures that almost seem to be aurally degrading as they ooze from the speakers, the decay forecasting certain “hypnagogic pop” moves by many years.
Along with confident femme vox, “Dance with Me” also includes a surprisingly heavy (rather than just funky) bass line. Recorded live in eight-track facility KH Studios and then mixed down to one track to allow for maximum overdubs, the lack of polish lends it and a few other Tropical Disco Hustle entries an air of distinctiveness specifically originating from spontaneous creativity built on resources effective but limited.
And this contrasts with Levi John’s “Feel Like Dancing,” the song’s broadly-scaled funk captured in larger environs, one studio owned by RCA the other by Cat Stevens. The result is impossible to imagine without the example of “Theme from Shaft,” John and his backing singers expanding upon the conversational motif employed in Hayes’ original.
“Feel Like Dancing” is sturdy but far from amazing. However, it’s followed by Joanne Wilson’s “Got to Have You,” one of the release’s strongest numbers, The daughter of Tony Wilson, a Trinidad resident most famous as the main songwriter in Hot Chocolate (of “You Sexy Thing” fame), Joanne’s voice is a perfect fit for the material she’s given, the beat so infectious it could easily be labeled “Readymade Block Party.”
More of those deteriorating keyboard tones rise in the mix, adding an appealing touch of strangeness to the equation. The only problem is that it should’ve been at least three times longer. In this case, the six-minute Whiskey Barons’ “rework” of the cut sequenced near Tropical Disco Hustle’s end is very much appreciated.
The story of Dennis Williams a.k.a. Merchant is intriguing. He overcame tough circumstances, learning how to play guitar and write music while in prison, and he eventually worked as a composer; amongst his clients was Eddy Grant of The Equals and “Electric Avenue” renown. Based on Tropical Disco Hustle’s inclusion of “Instant Funk,” his 1981 LP Merchant’s Pilgrimage is deserving of a full reissue.
Combining suavely unperturbed vocal style and maximal horn charts, forward-moving bedrock befitting the song’s title and extended threads of crisp guitar riffing, the first in a pair of unusual but ultimately quite successful additives is furnished by vocal bursts that initially bring to mind The Manhattan Transfer but slowly conjure comparisons to eternally swank exotica stylist Juan Garcia Esquivel.
The other curious ingredient in “Instant Funk” is the timbre of the bowed strings, which sound like they’d be more at home in a Downtown NYC art-space than in a packed and humid groove shack. This is simply a hard act to follow, and while “Disco Music” by the Trinidad Troubadours with Tony Ricardo doesn’t match it, the tune does offer points of considerable interest.
What seems at the outset like a throwaway again tapping the model of Hayes gradually builds in attractiveness due to a quality arrangement; it was conducted by Asquith Clarke, noted for working for Mighty Sparrow, eight-time winner of the Calypso Monarch title. Later a very nice sax solo arrives from Rudy Glasgow. And judging by Ricardo’s voice, he had some decades under his belt at the time of “Disco Music”’s recording; I’m slightly reminded of Rufus Thomas.
And like Thomas, who delivered his debut 78 in 1943 and dished-out “Bear Cat,” an answer disc to Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” ten years later at Sun Studios before landing at Stax, Kelvin Pope was also something of a musical survivor. As The Mighty Duke Pope was Calypso Monarch four straight times beginning in 1968. Two decades after, during the ’87 Carnival parade, his song “Thunder” was selected as Carnival Road March.
Duke’s track is also denser instrumentally, its horn-charts reminiscent of Afro-Beat, and as a socially aware artist his “Be Yourself” stands a bit apart from the check-your-problems-at-the-door vibe that permeates much of what’s here and the disco genre as a whole. But maybe that’s a spurious assumption supported only by the form’s popular success. Even that’s a complicated issue; the film Saturday Night Fever is often reduced to the description of John Travolta as an incessantly boogying disco nut, but anyone that’s seen it can vouch for its occasionally uncomfortable realist objectives.
Tropical Disco Hustle offers two consecutive tracks by Wild Fire, “Rebel” and “Living on a String.” As their titles should insinuate, the group formed by the excellently named Oliver “Stumpy” Chapman (a pal of Tony Wilson) was explicitly concerned with real-world issues in a way that “Dance with Me” and “Disco Music” assuredly were not. The cumulative effect of Wild Fire’s selections presents them as fairly comparable to a Trinidadian late-disco version of early UB40 as a little Eddy Grant gets tossed in on “Living on a String.” Good stuff.
The social relevance continues in Bahamans Ronnie Butler and the Rambler’s well-done and decidedly Gaye/Mayfield-informed “Peace without Love.” And then a sharp detour into the arteries of dance floor hedonism’s wildly palpitating ticker comes through Mavis John’s “Use My Body.” Written by Wilson, it’s got a serious groove and first-rate electric piano courtesy of Raf Robertson. Steamy, it’s also blunt; a few may be put off by the frequent lyrical refrain of “use my body…use me up,” but hey man, it was the ‘70s.
“Rockers Delight” by Jamaican Leroy Sibbles a.k.a. Prince Blackman is another fascinating entry. He started at Studio One under the auspices of Clement “Coxsone” Dodd. Some claim Sibbles was involved in every Studio One recording; he subsequently moved to Toronto and cut “Rockers Delight” there in 1980. It’s a deliberate but tasteful reggaeification of the Sugarhill Gang whopper.
Sibbles/Blackman’s version is worthy, but it’s additionally a welcome variation on its root source, a reliable party track that’s frankly become worn with overplay across the last decade or so. The tempo is slowed, dub atmosphere is added, lyrics about bad vittles are switched for a detailing of Rastas vs. Babylon, and it goes down minus a hitch.
The aforementioned remix of Joanne Wilson is next, trailed by a closing instrumental rethink by Al Kent of Odessey One’s “Dance with Me” that’s likeable but a smidge superfluous. In summation, Tropical Disco Hustle doesn’t really hit its stride until Joanne Wilson emerges, but it’s nearly as strong overall as Cultures of Soul’s Bombay Disco from earlier this year. They in fact make a good pair.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
