jimmy 'bo' horne - the best of the tk years 1975 - 1985
disco sucks.
well it does, mostly. the overly saccharine syrupy productions, the banal lyrics, the fashion etc just really didn't do anything for me back in the late 70's/early 80's.
but, yesterday something weird happened. i dropped this set of grooves in the machine and the sun came out (metaphorically speaking in this most miserable of summers). yes - the opening track is called 'spank', and features little esle but lots of declarations of the sort that say 'lets make love' in various ways, but behind the grunty rasp of jimmy 'bo' horne, (what a classic disco name !), is an awesome live band kicking up a veritable storm with fat bass line, kick'em in the nuts horns, and the most addictive organ riff. now, funked up raw disco i can totally appreciate. i'm totally won over. a little digging, and i find that the backing is provided by the famous miami tk records house band (aka kc and the sunshine band), who had, by the time they cut these tracks with jimmy, had their art down to a tee.
so, we got ourselves one serious classic monster groove to open the set, what about the rest. well unbelievably the follow on track 'dance across the floor' is even better ! the horns are massive and roar into action from the opening blast, only to met at 20 seconds by a fantastic organ loop.
my spine is literally wanting to melt.
then things start to slip, the cringesome tacky factor begins to creep in with the pretty annoying 'gimme some (part1 !!)' which has one of those happy smiley choruses that you cant stand, but yet manages to lodge itself in your head whether you want it to or not, and the backing becomes slightly more generic in places as the machines became more apparent in the production as opposed to the proper live backing band styled tracks.
luckily though the good stuff outweighs the bad as 13 of these tracks are backed by kc - which could be the deciding factor in the good vs bad factor . the funked up, wah wah excess,horny fatness appears with 'let me (let me be your lover') which as all the others has a simple pounding funk backing and simplistic lyrical content but i'll be damned if this aint doing good things to me. as do many others spread across this 19 track collection.
there is little need to go into further detail of the rest - they are all subtle variations on the established 70's disco funk groove, with a splattering of all the aforementioned ingredients - wah wah guitars, solid and firm bass lines, handclaps, call response lyrics, powered up horns, rolling tight drums, strings (on the smoochers), and of course the powerful vocals of the main man jimmy.
so, if you need some saucy naughtiness enhanced grooves to get in the discoball mood, this compilation could be the answer to all your wet dreams.
track listing
Spank (1980 remix)
Dance Across The Floor
Gimme Some (Part 1)
Get Happy
(They Long To Be) Close To You
Let Me (Let Me Be Your Lover)
Don’t Worry About It
Goin’ Home For Love
Let’s Do It
Is It In
Ask The Birds And The Bees
Without You
I Get Lifted
Music To Make Love By
You’re So Good To Me
Rocket In The Pocket
You Get Me Hot
I Wanna Go Home With You
It’s Your Sweet Love