Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2019 May 27 • Monday

The 571st Soundtrack of the Week is a 2019 Record Store Day release: music from Disco Godfather by Juice People Unlimited.

The musicians on this record include James Gadson on drums, David Shields on bass, Paul Jackson, Jr., and Walli Ali on guitars and Melvin Wabb on "Sound Percussion". (I’m not sure how that differs from "percussion".).

Each album side has two tracks on it.

Side A opens with "Disco Godfather", an over eleven-minute long song with a pretty deep and heavy disco funk groove with strings and typically aggrandizing lyrics, including a chorus chanting "He’s the godfather of the disco" and "Let’s dance / Come on and dance".

"Shermanizing/One Way Ticket to Hell" has the chorus singing "Shermanizing" while there’s a nice descending line. In the second half, the "Shermanizing" call is answered with a "One way ticket to hell” response. There are some cool keyboard sounds on here. According to the liner notes, “shermanizing” refers to "smoking cigarettes or joints dipped in liquid PCP".

The first song on the second side is a love song, "I Never Wanted To Say Goodbye". It’s sung by Marquee De Marco, who gives it a very passionate and soulful expression.

Finally there’s "Spaced Out", another deep and heavy funk disco tune with some cool chord changes and keyboard sounds and trippy lyrics with "Spaced out" as a chorus.