Branching off my milton wright thread, I wanted to create a general thread to dump some questions into.

1. When did the "rare groove" and "two step" scenes in the UK start? Were they mostly in London? What was even the difference between the two scenes -- did the "rare groove" scene just play some funkier material that the two step scene didn't and the two-step scene played some smoother material than the rare groove scene did?

2. Were these like rival scenes? It seems like the same people would be interested in both things. Why were there two (or even more than 2?) scenes? Was there also a separate "modern soul" scene? And a separate "jazz funk" scene?

3. What types of events did these scenes have? Were they mainly soul nights at night clubs and bars? Did people mainly hang out and drink or did they actually dance?

4. What does "2-step" even refer to? It's weird because in Chicago there's a "Steppers" scene of mainly older folks doing sort of complicated dances to music that heavily overlaps the "2-step" scene. I think their biggest records are Jeff Perry "love's gonna last" and Lowrell "mellow mellow right on". But they play a lot of modern stuff to.

5. Did all the scene focus more on LP cuts than 45s? Did one of the scenes focus on one more than the other?

6. Do these scenes still exist?

Also, totally unrelated, I have been getting some nice rare groove type sounds recently (partly because I've been buying a lot of random major label numbers and listening to them and finding some nice material). Here are 3 random ones I pulled from the top of the pile:

Mowest 5015 - GC Cameron - You are that special one / What it is, what it is. Both sides are nice, one is faster and one is slower. Obviously not as awesome as his Curtis Mayfield sounding masterpiece "no matter where" but still really nice.

Mercury 73450 - Brenda Lee Eager - When I'm with you. This is a great Larry Mizell production. I feel lame listing the record just because it's now in demand after it got recognized after Fonce Mizell died (I hate buying things that are popular or that a lot of people are into) but this is a really nice, deep and dark, classic rare groove sounding track.

Castle 78102 - Marie Franklin - Being in love ain't easy. Really nice subdued modern / southern groove sound

also, one of my all time favorite rare groove tracks of all time isn't a single, it's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSP3_nKX6qg

Did this get any play? I wish this were released as a single.

Edited January 28, 201213 yr by boba

it does stand up even today

dean

 

Good post. Reading all this stuff has brought many memories flooding back. Never went to Prestatyn back then but have seen the youtube footage mentioned and remembered just how quickly that whole London Soul [Special Branch] scene imploded due to the Acid House craze. One minute everyones walking around in Bass Weejuns, Blazers and Levis next minute its Smiley Face T-Shirts, Dungarees and bandanas !

My crowd used to frequent the West London area and pretty early on, I heard stories of Ecstasy parties but at that stage it wasn't associated with House music. The first time I can remember realising something was actually going on was a weekend event at Broadstairs in Kent. All my crowd attended and just before the weekend my friend told me that Danny Rampling [DJ] was bringing 2 or 3 coaches of punters with him. I remember thinking that was some achievement at the time. The weekend sticks in my mind because of the totally polarizing effect of the Acid House stuff that Danny was playing had on the crowd. His crowd loved it of course but everyone else around me hated it. There were nearly punch ups going on over it !

After that weekend, it was a pretty rapid change, I would say within about 3-6 months, that whole scene was gone forever,replaced musically by the London Modern Soul events [for diehard soulsters] and Acid Jazz[for the Jazz cats]…….The London 2 step scene was a totally separate scene to these as well.

Alex Lowes started his Weekenders at around the same time from memory which then gave some much needed focus for the Soul scene but as far as London was concerned, the existing Soul scene just collapsed.

The observations about the quality of mid 80s "Soul" are spot on as well. I believe it was the music itself which changed and was the main cause, it was definitely the reason for the Rare Groove scene taking off like it did and I'm sure the reason for the ultimate implosion of the Jazz Funk and Soul scene of the time.  A perfect storm which opened the door for the dominance of House music as club music which continues to this day. A mixture of super-smooth but ultimately Souless over-production from mainstream Soul, non-songs and lack of genuine Anthems for the clubs left the progressive Soul scene directionless. The combination of radically different Acid house sounds coupled with the Ecstasy phenomenon was just too intoxicating for many to resist. The idea of staying up all night and having it was nothing new to Northern Soul devotees of course but if you had never done anything like that before then I guess it was quite revolutionary wasn't  it ? I used to laugh at all these idiots in the pub who overnight had become "Clubbers" all wearing the Acid house uniform…..

The scene was always made up of one set people who genuinely felt,understood and loved the music and another set who were just there because they thought it was the "in" place to be. You can't buy taste…….  

Edited July 31, 20159 yr by Ivor Jones