This set had me worried before I started - I was following Peter Strom doing
a soul set, and wasn't sure how the crowd would interact. Peter definitely
had the crowd rocking out, but they weren't actually lindy hopping. An
additional hour of soul would have been WAY too much, but I also didn't want to
kill the party atmosphere that had been set up. In the end, the mood ended
up working well for me, and this was one of my best sets ever, in that my
attrition rate was quite low (I lost about 15% between 1am to 2am) and the
fraction of the floor dancing never dropped below 80%, and was typically over
90%. I was pleased, to say the least. I think my ADD served me well
here, in that I moved around enough to keep things fresh.
Tone Loc, "Funky Cold Medina" (edit)
Sticking with soul would have been a mistake. Going
straight into Lindy would have been a mistake. This kept a party feel,
while changing the nature of the party.
Dirty Dozen Brass Band, "St John the Revelator" (edit)
One of the songs that has an intro strong enough to stand up
to the ending of FCM. Fairly slow, though.
Ray Charles, "Yes Indeed"
Wanting to keep a powerful feeling, and transitioning to some
Gospel, which Peter hadn't touched on.
TA Dorsey w Bessie Griffin, "Search Me, Lord"
Still one of my favorites, I think it's become a standard in
the Southeast just by virtue of my having played it for the last year.
Haven't heard it get picked up by anyone else, yet, so I guess it can stay in
the rotation a bit longer.
LaVern Baker, "On Revival Day"
Now we're into solid, familiar "Lindy Hop" music. An
awesome recording with an all-star supporting cast.
<quick plug for KLX, introduced the next song by our Knoxville favorite>
Christabel, "It's Love"
Tasty, fun, definitely an Appalachian twist. Followed
with a super-quick (3 second) reminder about KLX. This CD is available on
CD Baby. Hint, hint.
Oscar Aleman, "Dolores"
Wonderful string-based number, very swinging. Excellent
eMusic find by Marc.
Johnny Guarnieri, "Gliss Me Again"
Mmmm... bowed bass. Surprisingly, only had 80% of the
crowd out. I'd expected better response, just because I know Gamble used
to play this one to great response fairly regularly.
Van Morrison, "Jackie Wilson Said"
Thinking that the energy needed to be picked back up, I played
this. It worked.
Blues Brothers w Aretha Franklin, "Think"
Getting back to the soul/party feel. This one rocked the
floor harder than I thought it would, so I continued the trend, even though I'd
been planning to move on immediately.
The Temptations, "Ain't Too Proud To Beg"
Getting a bit cliché for me, but I couldn't find anything that
had just the energy I was looking for on short notice.
Sy Oliver, "Rumble"
I'd planned on following "Think" with this - I wanted to come
out of the soul with something really A+ to keep everyone involved. This
is one that just can't miss.
Jack McDuff, "Tobacco Road"
It was time to check in for mellow. This is slow, but
really attractive energy.
Yoko Noge, "Rack 'Em Up"
I've loved this song ever since I heard Jesse Miner play it at
SoFLeX several years ago. Best when sped up just a hair, 4% in this case.
Aretha Franklin, "You Send Me"
A bit risky, because it's slow and sort of sweet. I was
worried it would kill the energy, but it was worth the gamble, and it paid off
nicely.
Sam Cooke, "Good Times"
The previous song was written by Sam Cooke, and this is
another one of those numbers that draws you in. The vibe was still going
strong, so I hit one more in the soul-y vein with...
Wayne Fontana, "The Game Of Love"
I first heard this on the "Good Morning, Vietnam" soundtrack,
many, many years ago. Also where I first heard Louis Armstrong. I
saved myself the hassle of transitioning back out, and paid homage to the
awesome organizers, by making the next song a jam for Jaya (Gina having already
gone home).
Buddy Johnson, "Southern Echoes"
A nice sweet song with a "Southern" reference. A bit
shorter than I should have used (I typically like longer songs for organizer
jams) but I was running into time constraints, since we needed to end at 2am.
<announced that there would only be three more songs>
Blues Brothers, "From The Bottom"
Nice rhythmic opening that builds in energy till it rocks the
hell out. There's very little by the Blues Bros that I don't like, but
that's not surprising, given the all-star lineup that they have. During
this song, someone came up to ask me if I had "Sing, Sing, Sing". I'm
serious, the cat actually expected me to play that for him (don't get me wrong,
I take requests - but it does need to make sense for the time and place).
Ray Charles, "Hard Times"
The jazzier instrumental Lindy Hopper favorite (as opposed to
the bluesy vocal version)
Eric Clapton, "Layla"
A nice ender. Popular enough to grab everyone, very
chilled out, but still rich enough to really find plenty of things to dance to.
All in all, one of my best sets ever. Not much in the way of the
out-of-the-box numbers I'm known for - the only songs/ versions I haven't heard other DJs
play were "Search Me, Lord", "Game of Love", and "You Send Me". So out of
21 songs, 3 were relative unknowns. Typically I throw in a few more, but
in this case it worked to really keep the energy up and keep everyone there
having a good time. As I told Michel Gamble, it's nights like this that I
really remember why I enjoy DJing so much.
