10 Underground Disco Selections Pt. 1

Ray/Round Up/1-1-1-1
"It’s not over between you and me." I got a "Love Hangover" and I need "Dr. Love to come and give me a "Love Injection." Songs like these were played in dimly lit warehouses and smoky lounges, these parties were furnished with 6-foot Cerwin Vega W-18 bass bend speakers that made your heart skip a beat if you stood to close. For the most part of the early eighties, dedicated B-siders a.k.a. disco-heads have been saturated with these songs, which were played at various clubs and lounges. But for those underground disco music lovers these songs have become commercialized and played out. Many have been placed in the "house music" retirement home without chance of release.
Deejays have even gone so far as to categorize songs like "Bad Luck" by Herald Melvin and The Blue Notes and "Baby I’m scared of you" by Womack and Womack as "sing along" songs. Chuck Brother member Cee White explains, "A ‘sing along’ song is like something you’ll hear two or three times a week if you go to the house spots, but these songs are retro." Many deejays agree that their collections would not be complete without certain albums.
With help from four of Chicago’s underground Deejays representing a more acute vision of what house music is and where it’s going, here are 10 must have musical selections for your listening pleasure.



❏ Artist/Name of album: The Crown Heights Affair/Foxy Lady
❏ Year/ Record Label: 1975/ De-Lite Records
❏ Staple songs: Dreaming a Dream (Disco), Foxy Lady
"Crown Heights is like a New York disco joint, said Cee White, "Coming up from 83 to now this song is synonymous with the records in my collection."

❏ Artist/ Name of album Roy Ayers/ Let’s Do It
❏ Year/Record company: 1978/ Polydor Incorporated
❏ Staple song: Sweet Tears, Lets Do It

DJ Gold-D admires Roy Ayers, saying, "‘Let’s Do It’ by Roy Ayers is influential. He’s a veteran and is still consistent to this day."
"Roy Ayres can do no wrong ‘Sweet Tears’ is a beautiful song," said Chris Calloway

❏ Artist/Name of Album: Bill Withers/ Just As I Am
❏ Year/Record Label: 1971/Sussex Records
❏ Staple Song: Harlem


Chris Calloway said, "You can play the classics up to the hot classics and if it’s a song they don’t know you can lose the crowd. I call these hot classics. It will give it (the party) the energy that it needs to turn it into a whole new party."

❏ Artist/Name: Brass Construction/Now Is Tomorrow
❏ Year/Record Label: 1976/United Artists Records
❏ Staple Song: Now Is Tomorrow

"It’s smooth and you can dance real nice to it," said DJ Gold-D. "You feel like your flying but your dancing and it has a wonderful break in the middle of the song. Gold-D continues, "It’s an underground standard cut, in fact it’s a super-cut. The album has more than one song on it that’s why it’s a staple."

❏ Artist/Name of Album: Mille Jackson/ A Taste of Mille
❏ Year/Record Label: 1979/ Polydor Incorporated
❏ Staple Song: Give It Up

Cee White said, "It’s a beater. She talkin shit. Give it up got damn. Give it up! Yeah, that stays in rotation." Rahaan agrees, "Give it up got damn isn’t a ‘sing along’."

❏ Artist/Name of Album: TomTom Club/ Tom Tom Club
❏ Year/Record Label: 1981/Sire Records
❏ Staple Song: Wordy Rappinghood

"Wordy Rappinghood brings a different atmosphere because it has a story to it," said Chris Calloway. Nobody really understands that song. Nobody really remembers it. It’s a deep song."

❏ Artist/Name of Album: The Police/Zenyatta Mondatta
❏ Year/ Record Label: 1980/A&M records Inc.
❏ Staple Song: When the World Is Running Down

"The song can make the party," Chris Calloway explains. Like ‘When the World Is Running Down’, or ‘Harlem,’ it will turn the party upside down inside out and will give the party the burst or injection that it needs.


❏ Artist/Name of Album: The O’Jays/Message In The Music
❏ Year/Record Label: 1976/Philadelphia International Records
❏ Staple Song: Message In Our Music

Cee White said, "Message in our music is a staple song within itself because it goes with everything you play. It puts me back in the standing of Ron Hardy at the ‘Muzik Box’." Interestingly enough Rahaan thinks this song is typical. "It’s a good song and I’ll play it. But the better version is by the Staple Singers."

❏ Artist/Name of Album: Rose Royce/Strikes Again
❏ Year/Record Label: 1978/Whitfield Records
❏ Staple Song: That’s What’s Wrong with me

Rahaan said he gets frustrated because he can’t play what he’d like to. "It’s like the matrix out here."He believes most songs being played that are considered underground are typical. "But I’ll play Rose Royce."

❏ Artist/Name of Album: Chantal Curtis/Get Another Love
❏ Year/Record Label: 1979/Keylock Records
❏ Staple Song: Get Another Love
"‘Get Another Love’ is a classic," said DJ Gold-D. "It brings sensuality." Cee White adds, "It’s a light sassy disco song. It’s got that rhythm that keeps you going."