Tag: Pride Month

June 29, 2023

Cheryl Lynn – Got To Be Real/Star Love (US 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1978

NEW 2023 Transfer!
NEW Meticulous Audio Restoration

Originally posted December 7, 2011

The Harlem drag ball scene — described by the social activist and writer Langston Hughes as “the strangest and gaudiest of all Harlem’s spectacles in the 1920s” — fragmented along racial lines in the early 1960s when Black queens became tired of having to “whiten up” if they wanted to have a chance of winning any in-house beauty contest. By the early 1970s, Black drag houses started to multiply and soon outstripped their white counterparts in terms of glamour, style and popularity. As contests expanded, categories multiplied and competition intensified, with prizes awarded to entrants whose drag was the most believable, the most real. Released in 1978, Cheryl Lynn’s feisty, upbeat disco track “Got to Be Real” became an instant ballroom classic.

In 2020 The Bew York Times named “Got To Be Real” one of the 15 Songs That Shook New York’s Queer Dance Floors in the 1970s and ’80s.

“Got to Be Real” is the debut single by American singer Cheryl Lynn. Written by Lynn, David Paich and David Foster, and produced by Paich and Marty Paich, the song was recorded for Lynn’s 1978 self-titled debut studio album. Columbia Records released the song as the album’s lead single in August 1978.

For the recording, David Shields played bass, David Paich played keyboards, James Gadson played drums and Ray Parker Jr. was the session guitarist.

In the United States, “Got to Be Real” peaked at position number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Soul Singles chart in early 1979. Along with the album cuts “Star Love” and “You Saved My Day”, “Got to Be Real” peaked at number 11 on the National Disco Action Top 40 chart. In the United Kingdom, “Got to Be Real” did not chart upon its original release – it was used for a TV advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer in 2010 and it entered the main charts for the first time at position number 78 for the week ending April 4, the next week peaking at number 70.

“Star Love” was released as the second single from Lynn’s self-titled debut album reaching a peak position of number 62 on the Billboard Hot 100, and number 16 on the R&B chart in the spring of 1979.

SIDE A:
Got To Be Real 5:07
Written-By – C. Lynn*, D. Foster*, D. Paich*

SIDE B:
Star Love 7:24
Written-By – J. Footman*, J. Weider*

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

CHARTS:

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1978	Got To Be Real	U.S. Billboard Hot 100	#12
1978	Got To Be Real	U.S. Billboard Hot Black Singles	#1
1978	Got To Be Real	U.S. Billboard Hot Dance/Disco	#11
Year	Single	Chart	Position
1979	Star Love	U.S. Billboard Hot 100	#62
1979	Star Love	U.S. Billboard Hot Black Singles	#16
1979	Star Love	U.S. Billboard Hot Dance/Disco	#11

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Columbia – 23-10869
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 ⅓ RPM, Single, Pitman Pressing
Country: US
Released: 1978
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Disco

CREDITS:

Producer, Arranged By – David Paich, Marty Paich

NOTES:
Special Disco Versions From The Columbia Lp: “Cheryl Lynn”
℗ 1978 CBS Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus: Ortofon 2M Black PnP MkII
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
DAC: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.

June 28, 2023

Sylvester with Patrick Cowley – Do Ya Wanna Funk/Mind warp (Japan 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1983

Patrick Cowley was one of disco’s most mysterious figures.

His life was cut short in 1982 when he died of Aids at age 32. He was a key presence in the gay San Francisco disco scene; in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the city had one of the best disco scenes in the world.

Sylvester was San Francisco’s biggest star and Cowley’s muse – a larger-than-life presence around town, dressed to the nines and often carrying multiple shopping bags as he walked down Castro Street. Cowley most famously worked with Sylvester on the ecstatic mega-hit You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and was a pioneer of the genre known as Hi-NRG, a relentlessly uptempo variant of disco that gained serious traction, especially in the UK and Europe.

Cowley was a good deal quieter than Sylvester, and more of a tech boffin, experimenting with music in an apartment in the Castro crammed with electronics, with cables hanging everywhere. “It was a mess of wires,” recalls John Hedges, who ran Megatone Records for many years, the now-legendary record label that Cowley originally started with Marty Blecman in the 1970s.

“It certainly didn’t look very safe,” he adds. “He was always experimenting to get the sounds. They would wire everything in and have tape machines, and the tape would go from one tape machine to another about 10 feet away to create the echo they wanted, or delay.”

Sylvester known as “The Queen Of Disco” died six years after Cowley, of Aids-related complications in 1988. Patrick Cowley and Sylvester were iconic trailblazers not just for queer and androgynous people, but for disco music as a whole, overcoming trauma, prejudice, and stigma to achieve their dreams.

“Do Ya Wanna Funk” is a 1982 dance song recorded by American recording artists Sylvester and Patrick Cowley. It was produced by Cowley, who incidentally died the same year. The song was most successful in Europe, especially in Belgium, Finland, and Norway, where it became a top-10 hit. It also reached the top 20 in the Netherlands and Switzerland and made it to the top 30 in West Germany and Australia, and the top 40 in the United Kingdom. The song was inspired by “I’m Your Jeanie”, a single by Jeanie Tracy, who was a background vocalist for Sylvester. It was also featured in the film Trading Places (1983). In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked “Do Ya Wanna Funk” number 179 in their list of 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.

“Mind Warp” was the title track from Patrick Cowley’s third and final album.

SIDE A:
Do Ya Wanna Funk (Long Version) 6:57
Performer – Sylvester With Patrick Cowley
Vocals – Sylvester
Written-By – Patrick Cowley, Sylvester

SIDE B:
Mind Warp (Long Version) 6:36
Performer – Patrick Cowley
Vocals – Patrick Cowley
Written-By – Patrick Cowley

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint
OBI Strip: Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1982	Do Ya wanna Funk	U.S. Billboard Hot Dance/Disco songs	#4

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Victor – VIL-1002
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM, Maxi-Single
Country: Japan
Released: 1983
Genre: Electronic
Style: Hi-NRG

CREDITS:

Producer – Patrick Cowley

NOTES:
Comes with an OBI strip

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.

June 27, 2023

Paul Lekakis – Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room) (Champion Remix) (UK 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1987

NEW 2023 Transfer
NEW Meticulous Audio Restoration

Originally posted July 13, 2015

A pretty face won’t get you everywhere… but it got you pretty damn far in the ’80s.

And it certainly helped gay musician Paul Lekakis, who went from upstate New York waiter, to model and professional party boy in Milan, to international pop star in 1987 with a little bop called “Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room.)”

The song will certainly resonate with those who survived its ’80s dance-floor domination… and anyone who’s attended a Pride party in the past five years.

Lekakis, who is HIV-positive, appeared on the cover of Poz magazine. In the article, he recalls major record labels wanting to market him as a teen idol in the 1980s, which did not interest the already out young singer.

“Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)” is the debut single by American singer and model Paul Lekakis.

Originally released in 1987 on ZYX Records, then picked up by Polydor Records for a wider release, the song peaked at #43 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S. and at #60 on the UK Singles Chart in England. It fared better in other parts of the world, where the song spent five weeks at #1 on the ARIA Charts in Australia, from April 13 through May 11 of 1987. It also topped music charts in Japan and South Africa and peaked at #2 in Canada. The song is noteworthy because it is a well-known 1980s dance club track that nonetheless failed to appear on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart upon its initial release. Subsequent remixes have appeared on that chart, however, as well as some of Lekakis’ other dance recordings. The song was popular in the LGBT community and helped to establish his career, both as a singer and as an actor.

Several remixes were commissioned for the track including the rare UK-only Champion Remix by mixmaster Phil Harding of PWL released on Champion Records a London-based major long-running soul, dance, and house music label.

SIDE A:
Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room) (A Phil Harding Remix) 6:40

SIDE B:
Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room) (A Phil Harding Dub Remix) 5:44

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1987	Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room)	U.S. Billboard Hot 100	#43

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Champion – CHAMPX 12-43
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 1987
Genre: Electronic
Style: Hi-NRG

CREDITS:

Producer – M. Chieregato*, R. Turatti*
Remix – Mixmaster Phil Harding*
Written-By – M. Chieregato*, R. Ballerini*, R. Turatti*, S. Montini*, T. Hooker*

NOTES:
Tracks are listed incorrectly on the back cover.

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.

June 26, 2023

Modern Rocketry – Homosexuality (Germany 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1985

TOTALLY OBSCURE 80S!

Modern Rocketry was a hi-NRG disco band featuring Ken Kessie, active from 1983 to 1988. They’re not very well known – in fact, they’re downright obscure – but what little fame they enjoyed was probably due to their 1985 release, best described as the gayest disco song ever. Homosexuality, with its b-side of ‘Thank God For Men’, followed in the well-trodden footsteps of Patrick Cowley’s Menergy and Boystown Gang’s ‘Cruising In The Streets’ with massive gay audience appeal. A hit in gay clubland.

Other notable songs include ‘(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone’ and ‘Deeper N Deeper’, none of which, it has to be said, has quite the show-stopping charm of a song whose main chorus is ‘Homosexuality… Yes sir! Do you wanna get next to me?’. Oh, and the Pet Shop Boys did a live cover of it at a pride event in 1992.

Check out the music video here

SIDE A:
Homosexuality 5:59

SIDE B:
Thank God For Men 5:37

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label:ZYX Records – ZYX 5311, ZYX Records – ZYX REC 5311
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM
Country: Germany
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic
Style: Hi NRG

CREDITS:

Lacquer Cut By – SST (8)
Producer, Written-By – Ken Kessie, Morey Goldstein

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.