Showing posts with label Studio 54. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Studio 54. Show all posts

Saturday, July 21, 2018

Take A Ride On Your Disco Stick

Look! It's Linda Clifford...!!!

FOUR CLASSIC ALBUMS FROM R&B LEGEND and “FIRST LADY OF DISCO” LINDA CLIFFORD TO BE RELEASED ON AUGUST 24 BY BLIXA SOUNDS
 
Newly re-mastered editions of Linda Clifford’s classic hit-filled Curtom solo albums return on Blixa Sounds. Features bonus 7” single versions and 12” Disco Mixes of her chart-topping smashes produced by Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes.
Blixa Sounds keeps the music coming with series of re-mastered reissues. 
 
On August 24, Blixa Sounds, a new Los Angeles based label, will release four classic albums by American R&B and Disco Icon Linda Clifford, If My Friends Could See Me Now (1977), Let Me Be Your Woman (1979), Here’s My Love (1979), and I’m Yours (1980).
 
Linda Clifford emerged as a powerhouse vocalist during the 1970s, bridging pop, R&B, and disco with her phenomenal voice and electrifying stage presence. Her #1 Billboard disco hits, including “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “Runaway Love,” “Gypsy Lady,” “Red Light” (from the Grammy-nominated Fame soundtrack), “Shoot Your Best Shot,” and “It Don’t Hurt No More,” accompanied her American Music Award nomination for “Favorite Female Disco Artist” (1979). Her marathon version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” even yielded a Top 20 hit in the U.K. Blixa Sounds celebrates Clifford’s white-hot streak from 1978-1980 with four albums originally released on Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label, featuring productions by Mayfield, legendary Motown arranger Gil Askey, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame icon Isaac Hayes.
 
Currently based in Chicago, Linda Clifford is still spellbinding audiences with her solo performances and sold-out shows alongside Martha Wash, Evelyn “Champagne” King, and Norma Jean Wright as the First Ladies of Disco, recently climbing the Top 10 Billboard dance charts with a remix of “Show Some Love” (2015). However, If My Friends Could See Me Now, Let Me Be Your Woman, Here’s My Love, and I’m Yours show where it all started.
 
After years of singing jazz and releasing one-off singles, including a minor hit on the R&B singles chart with Mayfield's "(It's Gonna Be) A Long Winter" (1973) for Paramount Records, the Brooklyn-born singer made with her full-length Curtom debut with Linda (1977). "Curtis was such a poet," Clifford says. "He had a way with words that everyone could relate to. His poetry was so magnificent.”
 
If My Friends Could See Me Now, Clifford’s second Curtom album, propelled her to international success. The title track hailed from the Broadway musical Sweet Charity (1966). Clifford herself had even appeared in Bob Fosse's 1969 film version starring Shirley MacLaine years before completely recasting the song for the dance floor. “I had no idea that the song affected so many people the way that it affected me,” she says. “In spite of everyone saying, 'Oh it's disco,' it was not just disco. It was pop. It was R&B. It was dance. It was everywhere! You couldn't turn the TV on without hearing it being played at some sports event.”
 
Her recordings of "If My Friends Could See Me Now," "Gypsy Lady," and "Runaway Love" would all crown the summit of Billboard's disco chart for the entire month of May 1978. The album itself rocketed up the album charts, landing inside the R&B Top 10 and peaking at #22 on the Billboard 200. Accolades poured in from industry trades: Cashbox named Clifford "Top Female Vocalist," Billboard awarded her "Most Promising New Disco Artist of 1978," and Record World honored Clifford with "Best New Female Vocalist" and "Best Pop Album.”
 
The following year, Clifford’s double LP Let Me Be Your Woman arrived via Curtom’s partnership with RSO Records, home to the Bee Gees and the blockbuster soundtracks to Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978). The album became Clifford’s second highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 (#26) with standout cuts like “Don’t Give It Up” (#15 R&B) and her sizzling, ten-minute cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (#11 Disco). The latter tune landed in pop culture history when it helped ignite the aerobics phenomenon on Jane Fonda’s Workout Record (1982).
 
By the end of 1979, Clifford released another full-length set for Curtom/RSO, Here’s My Love. Produced by famed engineer Juergen Koppers (Donna Summer) and Philly soul legends Norman Harris & Ron Tyson, the album spawned Clifford’s eighth Top 40 R&B hit (“I Just Wanna”). Billboard proclaimed, “The range of Clifford’s style is shown to great advantage as she gets down to a funky beat, sings a sweet ballad and keeps feet dancing on hot disco tunes.”
 
After recording The Right Combination (1980) with Curtis Mayfield, Clifford sparked the Fame soundtrack with the #1 disco hit “Red Light,” also featured on her final Curtom/RSO set, I’m Yours. Written and produced by Isaac Hayes, I’m Yours brought Clifford back to the top with “Shoot Your Best Shot.” Coupled with several television guest spots on Soul Train and American Bandstand, including two hosting stints on The Midnight Special (NBC), Clifford regularly performed at the nation's hottest discotheques. "I worked Studio 54 so many times, it was like a second home to me," she says. "The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show and I always had a good time with them. It was the place."
 
Beyond Clifford’s successful tenure with Curtom, she signed with Capitol Records and released I’ll Keep On Loving You (1982). The album generated another #1 single (“Don’t Come Crying to Me”) and featured “All the Man That I Need,” later popularized by Whitney Houston. She recorded two albums on the Chicago-based Red Label, Sneakin’ Out (1984) and My Heart’s On Fire (1985), and continued releasing a series of Top 20 dance hits throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s while establishing herself as a successful jingle singer for top brands like McDonald’s, Maybelline, and Tropicana. In 2005, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Music Awards and received the GEMA Foundation’s “Golden Mic Award” in 2014 for her contributions to music. James Arena also profiled Clifford in his best-selling book First Ladies of Disco (2013).
 
40 years after Linda Clifford began ascending the pop, disco, and soul charts, Blixa Sounds has remastered If My Friends Could See Me Now, Let Me Be Your Woman, Here’s My Love, and I’m Yours from the original master tapes. Each album is packaged in a lavish gatefold sleeve and features several bonus tracks making their appearance on CD for the first time ever. With these four releases, Blixa Sounds tells the definitive story of why Linda Clifford remains a disco and soul icon to all generations of music lovers.
 
Amazon retail links:
  • If My Friends Could See Me Now - click here
  • I’m Yours -- click here
  • Let Me Be Your Woman -- click here
  • Here’s My Love -- click here

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Alan Cumming: Rock Out With Your 50 Year Old C#ck Out!

Alan Cumming: Hell Yeah! I Am 50!
Alan Cumming rocked out with his cock out for his 50th Birthday celebration at Studio 54, wearing only a red Speedo, oh my!
The Good Wife star, jammed on his Instagram with the pic saying: "This is what fifty looks like!" 
The B-day boy looked awfully happy perched on the shoulders of a male pal in the barely there outfit. While surrounded by friends & acquaintances boogieing under a disco ball how appropriate.
Happy 50th Alan, you go guy!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Traci Lords "Last Drag"

It has been 16 years since pop icon Traci Lords album “1000 Fires“, was released in 1995. The first single off of it, “Control”, went double platinum, climbing to #2 on the Billboard Dance Charts. It was also featured on the Mortal Combat sound track.

The album’s second track, “Fallen Angel”, was showcased in the Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe film “Virtuosity.”

Well the notorious TL returns to the dance floor with a brand new high energy single “Last Drag.” I caught up with Ms. Lords in New York, before her fitting for the grand opening of Studio 54, in New York City.
 
MS: Hey Traci, how are you?

TL: I’m here in New York, Sirius Radio is doing a one night thing tonight at Studio 54, to celebrate their new channel that they are launching, that is dedicated to all the music of that era. I never went to Studio 54, but of course I know about the stories, and the outrageousness that took place. So I’m pretty excited…!

MS: Well I know you have a wardrobe fitting for the big evening soon, so I have a little quickie thing I want to do with you.

TL: I beg your pardon?! You and everybody else honey! (laughs)

MS: Yeah, take a number. (laughs) I am going to give you 10 Things and you say the first thing that pops into your head.


TL: OK, This sounds dangerous….

MS: No, it’s cool.

MS: John Waters
TL: Skinny Moustaches

MS: Underneath It All
TL: Redemption

MS: Drag Queens
TL: High Hair, Aquanet

MS: Purple Room
TL: My Safe Place

MS: Marilyn Monroe
TL: A Loss

MS: Love
TL: Family, My Husband & My Little Boy

MS: Melrose Place
TL: Heather Locklear

MS: Aliens
TL: Yes

MS: Sharon Lesher
TL: Spiked Eel Gucci High Heels

MS: Last Drag
TL:I Smile..It Is Like An
Alexander McQueen
Gold Necklace. It’s
Dangerous, But It Has A
Sense Of Humor To It.


MS: Have a great time tonight, at Studio 54.

TL: Thank you, have a great day.


“I kicked that habit, when I kicked your ass out the door” - Last Drag

Check out my full interview with Traci at:
http://www.chorusandverse.com/content.php?id=20111026A

Take a "Drag" at:
www.seatosun.com  
www.tracilords.com