the chuck davis orchestra - spirit of sunshine

this one is those unbelievably rare disco records and it's been under the radar for a lot of years until about five years ago when it got dug out with the mighty disco revival. fact is that it's an amazing track and a great groove and it could easily work in any set today.

i got hipped to the track a few years ago through a blog of which i cannot remember, it may be american athlete but it's also possible it's some other as it's been hyped up on a number of blogs. the jist is that it's a west end record that hasn't been any compo or anything.

it was originally on a french label (here comes some discogs information) and there it had a different mixdown which focused more on the instrumentation rather than the groove. it also sounded a bit rawer and the structure was more compact and you got from point a to b much quicker.

when tom moulton got his hands on the record he looked at it on from a dancefloors perspective and put the focus on the groove. he reshaped the track to the sense that it still felt like the original record but made it more dancefloor friendly. the rhythm sections was extended and all the horns was taken down in the mix.

moulton's version is quite refined and i think it really shows how much of a talent he was and how he understood dance music. he really understood that there was a gem underneath all the madness and all he had to do was to polish it up.

youtube

and it's quite mixable in it's original state but you need to be quick on the hands because it is a live drummer behind the rhythm section. there is one re-edit (that i know of) out there by super value edits and i don't like it at all. too much bas looping going on and it has this this ultra-bombastic section that doesn't pay off well and further more the kick that was placed on top is too overpowering.

i think all that's needed if one has to do edit this then it's to tweak moulton's version slighty more and just extended the groove a little bit more and maybe add a mixout section, sort of like a theo parrish style "ugly edit". otherwise, what's the point.