Have always loved this track, so when the original masters to this absolute classic found their way into my computer I thought I'd try and give it the LNTG treatment.

Enjoy.

Egypt [LNTG Epic Remix]

Mighty Clouds Of Joy 'Mighty Cloud Of Joy' (greg wilson & ché wilson rework)

124 bpm

DJ only vinyl 2024.

The Mighty Clouds Of Joy were an LA-based gospel group who’d been releasing records since the early-‘60s, initially as The Mighty, Mighty Clouds Of Joy’. In 1974 they made a departure from their more traditional style when the group went into Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, the epicentre when it came to the soulful dance music that would soon explode as disco, recording their album, ‘It’s Time’, with producer/songwriter, Dave Crawford. Members of the Philadelphia International group, MFSB, already renowned for backing artists like Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, The O’Jays and The Three Degrees, were brought aboard for the sessions, including the legendary Baker-Harris-Young rhythm section, who, apart from MFSB, fuelled The Trammps, with Earl Young celebrated for innovating the disco style of rock drumming.

I came across the group via their second single from ‘It’s Time’, ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’, released in late-‘74. I figure I must have picked my UK 7” out of a bargain bin when I was 14, maybe 15. There’s nowhere I would have previously heard this – it was before I started DJing, and it’s not something likely to be played on radio. I reckon I bought it on spec – I knew the label, ABC, via singles by Eddie Holman, Four Tops and Rufus, so it was a trusted source, and I would have been fascinated that the artist and title were (almost) the same.

It picked up specialist plays from some soul and funk DJs here, including Colin Curtis at the Blackpool Mecca and Les Spaine at The Timepiece in Liverpool, but largely went under the radar. It remained a personal favourite from the period, which I’d have thought would have done well in the States, but it appears to have been largely slept on there too, the track receiving DJ support, but not igniting as you’d imagine it would have. The following year, again recorded at Sigma Sound, the next Mighty Clouds album, ‘Kickin’’, included ‘Mighty High’, which would blow up big time with US DJs and top the disco chart (it wasn’t a track I can ever recall hearing in a UK club). It surprised me to learn that ‘Mighty High’ had been so big, while ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’ is conspicuous by its absence from both the US R&B and Disco charts – the latter sounding far more like a disco classic to my ears.

Having remixed Gabriels ‘Love And Hate In A Different Time’ with Ché, inspired by the mid-‘70s Earl Young disco groove, it brought to mind the gospel-infused ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’, and this rework resulted. Having played it out while we fine-tuned, despite its relative obscurity, people responded to it like they’ve known it all their lives, it’s ‘movin’ on up’ refrain infectious, which makes it all the more surprising that it wasn’t huge on release.

Pressed on limited vinyl as part of the GW Edits series, and featuring ‘The Turnaround’, an update of Vicki Sue Robinson’s ’76 disco anthem, ‘Turn The Beat Around’.

Mighty Clouds Of Joy 'Mighty Cloud Of Joy' (greg wilson & ché wilson rework)

01. Manolo - No Place For Me (Cisco Cisco Remix)

Ain't No Sunshine (Disco Tech Rework) DUB VERSION

This is one i done way back in 2011,

Got released as part of Digital Only Vol 1
Get Down Edits

Sly & The Family Stone – If You Want Me To Stay (Daz`s Bootleggin It)

DUM DADA

Buy on bandcamp

SOPRASOUND - DUM DADA

Listen To My Reasons (Extended Mix)

Edit The Edit ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ (greg wilson edit of pta mash-ups)

112 bpm

Previously limited vinyl only in 2007 & 2009.

Of all the tracks I’ve played since my DJ return at the end of ’03, this has been undoubtedly the most requested. It was very much a signature track for a number of years, and still makes an appearance from time to time nowadays.

It all stems from when I picked up a 12” from Piccadilly Records in Manchester during the summer of 2005. It was by The P.T.A (Paul Martin and Tyrrell) on Throw Away Records, and included two mash-ups, both of which used the vocal from Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’, which had been a big R&B hit earlier that year. On one side of the 12” it had been mashed with Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ (this was titled ‘Unfinished Thing’), whilst on the other, ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ by the Rolling Stones (‘One For The Devil’). Not only had each of these combinations melded brilliantly, but both had ‘Sympathy’ in the title. This impressed me no end – some genius juxtaposition going on there.

Listening closer it was clear that there’d been some tampering, but it wasn’t until much later that I realised that, apart from the Amerie acappella, everything had been re-created by Canadian producer / DJ Tyrrell, including Keith Richard’s iconic guitar solo, which sounded better than ever - I’d presumed that the version of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ he’d used had come from some Andrew Loog Oldham type instrumental (as was the case when The Verve famously sampled Oldham’s orchestral arrangement of the Stones’ ‘The Last Time’, on their 90’s classic ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’), so this only added to my awe at what Tyrrell and Paul had somehow managed to magic up.

Brilliance on vinyl is all good and well, but I’d bought the track with the dancefloor in mind, so it was now a case of how it walked the walk. Straight away I had a problem – which side to play? They were both really strong and I couldn’t make my mind up at first, but then I went between the horns of this dilemma and decided to mix one straight into the other, as though it was a single continuous track. I originally did this live (they appear together this way on a recording from Birmingham’s much lamented Jigsaw night, where I played in August ’05), but then I decided to put together an edit so I could take the combined length down by about three minutes and tighten the idea up. I called this version ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ – I utilized the percussion from ‘One For The Devil’ for the intro, before moving into the main body of ‘Unfinished Thing’, which then mixes back into ‘One for The Devil’ during the breakdown, reaching its climax with the guitar solo. To round things off I gave it a customary peppering of samples and spins.

The edit went Big with a capital B for me, and everywhere I went people were asking for it – it was one of those tracks you couldn’t stop playing because you knew that people would be disappointed not to hear it. When I came to put together my Essential Mix for Radio 1 in January ‘09, ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ was probably the first track on my list (the mix focusing on the tunes that had served me best since my comeback five years previous).

A limited 12” on the Edit The Edit inprint was made available in 2007 – as the name suggests, this was for my edits of other peoples edits (or mash-ups, as in this case). The original P.T.A release was fully credited on the label – I’d made contact with Tyrrell via email and he’d given his blessing for the 12” to be pressed. We got to meet for the first time when I was in London appearing at Plastic People in April ’07, where he’d hear me play ‘Two Sides’ over that killer system.

In 2009 it would re-appear on vinyl, this time as the second release in the Reactivate series (following on from ‘I Was A Teenage DJ’ / ‘Gotta Keep Workin’ It’), a new wave of DJ demand resulting from its Essential Mix inclusion.

Given that I can’t list the artists as Amerie, Massive Attack & the Rolling Stones (because two thirds of that trio are Tyrrell in disguise), I’ll stick to Edit The Edit ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy', which is how it’s been listed most often, Essential Mix included.

When I asked Tyrrell if he was happy for me to upload it here he told me to ‘go ahead, spread the love’. So here it is, maintaining the bi-yearly sequence – 2005 original P.T.A 12”, 2007 Edit The Edit 12”, 2009 Reactivate 12”, and now 2011 SoundCloud download.

Greg Wilson – August 2011


Edit The Edit 'Two Sides Of Sympathy' (greg wilson edit of pta mash-ups)

Henry Greenwood and I have put together a couple of reworks, which I’ve been playing throughout the summer, both ‘70s tracks, one Disco, one Balearic in flavour. The first I’ve uploaded is the former.

The Los Angeles based songwriting and production team Laurin Rinder & W. Michael Lewis forged a distinctive Disco sound during the mid-late 70’s, drawing from their background as Rock and Soul session musicians, whilst playing all the instruments themselves, El Coco and Le Pamplemousse being their initial projects. They’d later record a series of albums under their own names, Rinder & Lewis, including the grandiose Disco concept album, ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. The smooth grooving and somewhat esoteric ‘Mondo Disco’ is one of their early tracks released under the El Coco moniker in 1976.

Available to pre-order on 12" here: https://www.juno.co.uk/products/gw-henry-disco-mondo/739367-01/

Pre-Order

El Coco 'Mondo Disco' (greg wilson & henry greenwood rework)

Talking Heads ‘Psycho Killer’ (greg wilson edit)

118 bpm

Previously limited DJ only vinyl / CD 2007.

Pressed in 2007 as ‘Gotta Tape I Wanna Play', I originally put this together for my US debut in October 2005, at APT in NYC – recording here:
http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/first-time-in-nyc-apt-21-10-05 

I was a big fan of ‘Stop Making Sense’, the Talking Heads concert from 1984, which was released as both a film and an album. It starts with David Byrne on an empty stage with just a ghetto blaster and acoustic guitar, performing one of the band’s best-known tracks, ‘Psycho Killer, which was originally released in 1977. The beats, courtesy of a Roland TR-808 drum machine, re-appear in extended form over the closing credits. The idea of an edit was there from the moment I bought ‘Stop Making Sense’ on VHS back in the 80’s, but the sound quality from the video wouldn’t have been up to scratch. However, when it was released on DVD later down the line, this was no longer a problem, and I was able to let the beats run on their own for a couple of minutes before the guitar enters and the track really kicks in.

The edit took off in a big way for me, and later with DJ’s including Andrew Weatherall and Optimo. It subsequently became a major festival tune for me and featured in my Essential Mix in 2009 (http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/essential-mix-greg-wilson-mix-for-bbc-radio-1). More recently it appeared on my Festival Anthems mix (http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/greg-wilson-festival-anthems), and given this, I thought it was a good time to share here.

There’s more info about ‘Stop Making Sense’ on the blog, as this was last month’s featured album:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/05/living-to-music-talking-heads-stop-making-sense/ 

Greg Wilson – July 2012

Check out my label's music at: https://superweirdsubstance.bandcamp.com

Talking Heads 'Psycho Killer' (greg wilson edit)

Chilly - For Your Love(Todd Terje Re-Edit)

Bookings: matt@thepool-london.com 
Promos: promo@gregwilson.co.uk 
DJ Dates: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/upcoming-dj-dates/
Greg began DJing in 1975 and is regarded as one of the most important figures on the UK dance scene. He enjoyed hugely popular residencies in the early eighties at Wigan Pier and Manchester’s majorly influential Legend, having originally started out in his hometown, New Brighton. A pioneer of mixing in the UK, he became the first ‘dance music’ specialist hired for a regular weekly session at Manchester’s now legendary Haçienda club in 1983. Greg was instrumental in breaking the new electronic, post-disco records coming out of New York, a sound he has dubbed ‘Electro-Funk’.

In 2003 he set up electrofunkroots, a website documenting this crucial era in the evolution of dance culture. After a two decade hiatus from the booth, he returned to DJing and soon welcomed bookings throughout Europe and, subsequently, worldwide.

Greg was the first DJ to mix live on British TV, putting together the first UK radio mixes of their type for Piccadilly 261 in Manchester and showing a certain Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) how to scratch.

Nominated by DJ Magazine for outstanding contribution, and also named amongst their top twenty remixers of all-time, Greg’s remix credits include Grace Jones, The XX, Groove Armada, Bryan Ferry, Confidence Man, Gilberto Gil and Simian Mobile Disco, whilst he’s edited tracks by A Guy Called Gerald, Talking Heads, O.M.D., Electronic, Imagination and Missy Elliot.

In January 2009 Greg’s reputation was further enhanced when his Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 received almost universal acclaim and was selected as one of 10 classics that spanned the show’s near 17 year history.

Greg’s Blog, ‘Being A DJ’, was launched in June 2010 for observations on various aspects of club culture now an online touchstone for an ever-increasing amount of dance enthusiasts and aficionados.

In August 2010 he co-curated areas at the inaugural Vintage Festival at Goodwood, which was named ‘Best New Festival’ at the UK Festival Awards.

He has produced a series of documentary podcasts, Time Capsule, Random Influences and Early 80’s Floorfillers, as well as the long-running blog series, Living To Music.

Greg has given talks on music and DJ culture at a number events at venues The Tate Gallery in Liverpool and London's Southbank and Institute Of Contemporary Arts, whilst in 2013 he was invited onto a panel alongside legendary figures Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder @ ADE in Amsterdam. 

In 2014 he unveiled the multi-media label Super Weird Substance, focusing on recording and live events. In 2015, the label released 8 vinyl singles, brought together in the 2 CD comp, 'Greg Wilson Presents Super Weird Substance'. September 2015 saw a memorable Festival No.6 Happening in Portmeirion and Greg rounded off the year with the Liverpool-based celebration of the 40th anniversary of his first club date in 1975 as well as being presented with DJ Magazine's Industry Icon award.

Greg launched his Credit To The Edit club collective at 2016's Festival No.6 and since then has taken it to Liverpool, Berlin, Brixton, Bethnal Green and finally back to Portmeirion for Festival No.6 2017.

2017 saw his label host the epic 14 Hour Super Weird Happening at Liverpool's Florrie, following a mixtape collaboration with Alan Moore, who also appeared at the Happening, whilst it also saw the digital release of The Super Weird Society's 'Gone With The Vibe', released the following year on the first Substance Select 12" vinyl alongside 'The Ghosts Of Watling Street', 'The Best Is Yet To Come' and 'Summer Came My Way'. 2018 also saw the release of Vol.3 in Greg's long-running Credit To The Edit compilation series.

After a handful of further releases, the label was put into hibernation with the onset of covid. Diversifying, ‘Greg Wilson’s Discotheque Archives’ was issued during 2020 lockdown as a limited run paperback, with more books, both Wilson’s own projects and by other authors, now planned.