With the release of a triple CD 'Masterpiece' compilation, Carl Craig shows why he's one of Detroit's most travelled and respect prodigies... words: IAN MCQUAID
C
arl Craig takes Detroit everywhere. There are few artists who spend so much time on the road whilst remaining inextricably linked to the home town that shaped them. The paradox speaks volumes of the romance
Motor City exerts on the imagination: Detroit’s major players have never been isolated individuals – they’re more members of an electronic Rosicrucian society, sharing an arcane knowledge and speaking a complex secret language steeped in heritage, yet always racing onwards, upwards.
Craig’s forthcoming 'Masterpiece' compilation is a sprawling cartography of this heritage, a chance to map his inspirations whilst paving the way to techno futures. Over three discs it ranges from the cuts he spins to get you dancing, to what he listens to at home, to the songs embedded in his musical DNA. Unsurprisingly, there are surprises. A DJ known for his far flung tastes and extended jazz workouts (and no, that’s not ‘jazzy’, but genuine straight up jazz), he was never going to have spent his life chained to the ticking of a 909 kick. Alongside foundation tracks from forefathers Saunderson and May, there are curve balls from the likes of David Lynch and Muddy Waters. Uniquely for Craig, there is also a healthy repping of Detroit’s first great dance music powerhouse, which, as the DJ explains over a treacherous Skype connection, was an unplanned bonus...
MOTOWN
“What I was surprised by was one of the easiest places to license tracks from was Motown. I was surprised as hell by that! I was like, ‘oh shoot, Motown, I’ll take three!’ And that was really an important step, because you know I’m from Detroit and I haven’t really talked a lot about the influence that Motown has had. They put out some risky stuff that made it past Berry Gordy - or maybe he just didn’t care by that time - but the stuff that Norman Whitfield did for The Temptations... I mean he was one of the first guys at Motown to integrate the synthesizer into the Motown sound. Including psychedelic influences into soul music was really a huge risk, and it could have flopped. I don’t know if Norman produced The Supremes' 'Reflections,' but that track has some really weird noises in it. It sounds like they were listening to The Beatles’ 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and decided to integrate it into their music. It’s quite incredible reading about Motown at the time, and seeing what actually got past Gordy and what worked. I don’t talk about the label a lot because it gets too much hype anyway, but it did have a huge impact on me, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and of course Stevie Wonder, even down to the stuff like Switch, DeBarge and Rick James, this explosion they had in the late '70s and '80s of post disco funk. Even a lot of ballads were incredible, a lot of DeBarge stuff still stands up today.”
Inevitably there were tracks that couldn’t make the cut, and Craig talks about the frustration of trying to get music licensed from major labels – one in particular,
028
djmag.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94