Life is something special, isn’t it? That’s something you can palpably feel in the music of Larry Levan. When he introduced music to the dancefloor he reimagined the music in a way the originals (possibly) never imagined. In a way he made that music everyone’s. Was Gwen Guthrie’s music ever truly hers? Was it ever truly Larry’s? Certainly it was, for just a moment, Sly and Robbie’s. Certainly, it was once Wally Badarou’s and Darryl Thompson’s. However, once it was sung by Gwen, and heard by Larry, it became his. When Larry felt the sense of inspiration overcome him, and felt the urge to feel it (in his own way), it became ours. Music is something special, and for the original run time of 34 minutes, Larry Levan’s Padlock (Special Mixes) is an album of music displaying how much his ideas were based on intuition and tradition, processed and developed, in a very special moment in time. Gwen Guthrie may have been the muse but the dancefloor had been his canvas.
Gwen Guthrie, could be argued, served as the perfect source for inspiration to Larry’s musical ideas. Gwen came from humble beginnings in Newark, NJ, parlaying a classically-trained background into work singing on jingles and cutting her teeth serving as a background/backup vocalist for artists like Quincy Jones, Aretha, and Ben E. King. With time she developed a career as a songwriter, penning songs for groups like Sister Sledge and artists like Roberta Flack. In 1978, Gwen was invited by Sly and Robbie to sing backup on some reggae music by Peter Tosh. Immediately, they struck a friendship, likening Gwen to a songbird and giving her the name of “Natty” Gwen. Gwen herself transplanted and moved into Jamaica to semi-permanently call it home.
In the late ‘70s, Gwen was far from launching her own solo career. Still a product of the time, record companies refused to give someone as different (physically and vocally) as her a time in the limelight. Sly and Robbie had different ambitions, though. They saw her intuitive creativity as an outlet to crossover into the American R&B world. Together, at Compass Point studios, they reimagined Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” as something distinctly new — not quite dub, not quite R&B, it was some, new kind of dance music. Island honcho, Chris Blackwell, heard the track and immediately signed her to spearhead their first steps into the American R&B market. Their previous signing, Grace Jones, was brilliant but perhaps too out-there for most.
With Sly and Robbie, Gwen would take Nassau by storm, creating a sexier, more lived-in version of the sound they had pioneered but (more often than not) stumbled upon in their work with Grace Jones. Same as before, French-born Wally Badarou would lend his magical keyboard hands in matching a motley crew of influences (and a motley crew of inspired pioneering American funk session cats) with the sound of a gifted diva willing to mix it up. On her self-titled debut, songs like “Peek-A-Boo”, “Getting Hot”, and “It Should Have Been You”, tweak American urban dance ideas (post-disco, boogie, and funk) by elongating them and spacing them out, applying dub technique to make sumptuous cuts delightfully more groovy. Suffice it to say, American audiences were not ready nor receptive to what they did. While England’s Caribbean community warmed up to these cuts, save for a few dance floor devotees, Gwen’s records stagnated in the music shops. But, oh, what kind of devotees did Gwen wind up riling up? A truly special one would be Larry Levan.
At the Paradise Garage, Larry Levan would find ways to slip all sorts of cuts from this album in his long-form dance floor mixes. Although, Gwen’s music was decidedly of commercial radio-unfriendly length, for Larry it was perfectly taut; made to propel, entrance, and move the crowd, exactly in ways most of the music he searched for should/would have. When offered by Island to give Gwen the Paradise Garage “house” treatment, Larry took “It Should Have Been You” and prolonged it nearly twice as long (in time and ideas), added all sorts of fascinatingly futuristic synth embellishments (perhaps gleaned from his kaleidoscopic taste) and showed the world just how dialed-in Gwen was. A dance floor monster, to this very day, it was a house track that rightfully rivaled (and topped) anything coming out Chicago’s burgeoning Warehouse club. Just that same year, Larry had seen that new black movement and expanded upon it with his work on Imagination’s “Just An Illusion”.
1983, would probably stand out as Larry’s high water mark. Fresh from creating and joining the N.Y.C. Peech Boys, Larry had found creative outlets to tag the R&B market and to twist his experimental ideas, without having to front as “the” face of that idea. Under his own Island imprint, Garage House, he had the freedom to release albums and singles to flesh out the radical new music flowing in his head. Cuts like “Don’t Make Me Wait” and “Life Is Something Special” remain special for that reason. Unencumbered by trying to fit anything other than his dance floor they served as prototypes for the ideas he’d fully roll around in the full album-length format with Gwen.
With Gwen, Larry finally stepped out in front into the creative spotlight. Gwen’s own album Portrait, released in 1983 as well, had been considerably more inviting and immediate than her debut. While this fit perfect for the urban radio market, Island recognized that the dance market needed something far different. Tracks like “Peanut Butter” and “Padlock” walked that trapeze act of experimental funk and uptempo adult R&B perfectly enough to chart, but somehow remain hidden in above ground culture. Taking tracks from both her debut and Portrait, under the studio chopping block of Larry, though, these teases turned to exaltation, into pure rapture that could only be made better by making them luxuriate in those feelings even more. It was the culmination of Larry’s own idea that the best way to make a mix isn’t to worry about beat-matching, genre-slotting, or as a pander to a crowd, but to connect with just that one person, for whom that music is revealing a story that’s perfectly theirs.
This masterpiece was Larry’s for a while. All of Gwen’s supporting cast contributed to make it far more his, this time, as well. Gwen would happily reimagine her vision to do so. But now, I imagine, it might be your turn to find your connection with it. Padlock (Special Mixes) gives everyone equal billing. The original runs for 34 minutes, but you always swear this one should/can always run for far longer — at least it seems like it would for you — and (guess what?) today it actually might…
One response
Thank for share this rare jewel. It’s a little treasure!