www.musicweek.com PRODUCTREISSUES JELLYBEAN • SAM RECORDS • RHONDA WASHINGTON • DIONNE WARWICK
JELLYBEAN • Just Visiting This Planet (Cherry Pop CRPOP 109)
Successful as a mixer, producer and DJ in the early 1980s, John ‘Jellybean’
Benitez also became a chart star in his own right with the release of this 1987 album, which spawned four hit singles. All made the Top 20, as did the album itself. Primarily synth-based, bright and propulsive, Jellybean’s pop/dance nuggets now have a charmingly dated hi-nrg feel, and feature a roster of excellent guest vocalists including soulful UK singer Steven Dante on The Real Thing, Elisa Fiorillo on Who Found Who - a song originally destined for Five Star - and Adele Bertei on Just A Mirage. On CD for the first time, the album contains five bonus tracks, including the single Sidewalk Talk, which pre-dates the album, and was a minor hit with Catherine
Buchanan on lead vocals but is best known because it includes background vocals by, and was written by Jellybean’s former girlfriend Madonna.
VARIOUS • Mixology: Sam Records Extended Play (Harmless HURTXCD 126)
Harmless’ Mixology series - a celebration of great dance labels - got off
to a great start with its Salsoul release a while ago, and continues the good work by shining its light on the lesser-known Sam label, named after its founder Sam Weiss. A double-disc set, it comprises 13 standalone tracks – some in original mixes, others in cunning re-edits – and an hour- long mix of them all by Jacques Renault. The label’s best-known tracks - Gary’s Gang’s Keep On Dancing, Vicky D’s This Beat Is
Mine, John Davis’ Stay With Me and K.I.D.’s Don’t Stop - remain refreshing artifacts of the disco era, and it’s good to hear the less widely heard Feel Alright by Komiko and Let’s Do It by Conversion to name but two.
HOT SAUCE FEAT. RHONDA WASHINGTON • Good Woman Turning Bad - The Complete Volt Recordings (Stax/Ace CDSXD 140)
One of the legendary lost albums of Southern Soul, Good Woman
Turning Bad was scheduled for release on Stax subsidiary Volt in 1974 but, with the company in its death throes, the release was cancelled and only sees the light of day for the first time now. With supremely soulful lead vocals from Rhonda Washington, Hot Sauce released a series of
excellent but unsuccessful singles for Volt which - following the recent discovery of the proposed track listing - are now sequenced as envisaged within the album, which is also fleshed out by the inclusion of non-album b-sides. At turns soulful and funky, it is a truly excellent album, and so obscure that no- one really knows how Rhonda Washington spelt her forename (three variations exist) or even what became of her. Whatever happened, she left behind some sublime sides, including the sinewy, mid-tempo title track, the feisty, woman-done-wrong wailer What Do You See In Her and a similarly spirited interpretation of the Johnnie Taylor hit Stop Doggin’ Me Around.
DIONNE WARWICK • Dionne (Big Break CDBBR 0176)
There is no such thing as a bad Dionne Warwick album but, set against a catalogue stuffed with
albums produced by Burt Bacharach and with exceptional individual
albums helmed by Luther Vandross and Barry Gibb, the prospect of an album produced by Barry Manilow might seem a
bit...naff. The truth is anything but, as this 1979 release is an absolute gem. Put together by Arista president Clive Davis, when both were Arista artists, Warwick and Manilow work exceptionally well together, with Manilow’s taste for lush orchestration matching Warwick’s velvety voice . Déjà Vu, is a delicate and compelling version of the Isaac Hayes song, and The Letter is a surprisingly enjoyable uptempo take on the Box Tops hit but the tour-de-force here is I’ll Never Love This Way Again, which starts in quiet, reflective mode and builds into a powerful and hugely commercial anthem.
07.09.12 MusicWeek 49
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