GREG WILSON'S EARLY 80'S FLOORFILLERS - JANUARY 1982

To tie-in with the re-launch of my Electrofunkroots resource I'm going to be uploading some audio content that was either recorded in the early 80's, or looks back on the era.

I hope you check out the redesigned revitalized website, we've added loads of new stuff, and will continue to do so on a regular basis - your feedback would be very much appreciated:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk

There's also a blog post, which gives you the full lowdown - Redesigned Revitalized Electrofunkroots Revamped:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/01/redesigned-revitalized/

Greg Wilson - January 2012

GREG WILSON’S EARLY 80’s FLOORFILLERS:
A fascinating insight on how the fading Jazz-Funk scene gave way to the emerging Electro-Funk movement in the early 80’s, ‘Greg Wilson’s Early 80’s Floorfillers’, marks the 30th anniversary of when these tracks first appeared. Compiled from his record lists of the time, and unfolding month by month, Greg counts down the Top 10 Floorfillers played at his venues during the key years of ’82 and ’83. Featured, most notably, on his Tuesday sessions at Wigan Pier and Wednesday gatherings at Legend in Manchester, the most cutting-edge weekly black music nights of the era, these were the clubs most associated with the evolving Electro-Funk sound.

The majority of music played on the black scene in the UK was initially only available on import, mainly out of New York during this period, with the club nights described as ‘upfront’, meaning that the DJ’s were way ahead of the curve – what they played now, others played later, or not at all. Without these DJ’s, many now classic dance tracks would never have become UK hits (many without enjoying similar crossover success in the US) - the reason they were released here in the first place was because these specialist DJ’s were breaking them via the underground.

Kicking off in January 1982, at a time when Greg, already recognised as one of the country’s leading Jazz-Funk DJ’s. Things were about to change in a big way, and Greg would be at the forefront of this often controversial move towards the electronic. It’s interesting to note that Jazz artists, Ray Barretto, Grover Washington Jr and Lesette Wilson, all had massive tunes in the opening Top 10, illustrating how Jazz-Funk was still an essential part of the overall black music palette at that point in time, along with the ever popular Disco Funk (which would later be retrospectively labelled Boogie) and, of course, the more Soulful dance tracks (Street Soul or 80’s Groove to give it another retrospective tag). But this new electronic strain was already synthesizing, as illustrated by D Train’s ‘You’re The One For Me’ – nowadays regarded as a Disco classic, but back then a whole new sound. Things were about to change in a big way; we were entering the hybrid age for dance music, and the oncoming House and Techno and Hip Hop directions would all owe a huge debt to this era of dance alchemy and groove experimentation.

This podcast is also available on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad via the Radio ditto app, which is downloadable for free from iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/id464200632?mt=8

You can see the Top 10, complete with label or record sleeve scans and individual track credits, here:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/lists/greg-wilsons-top-10-floorfillers-jan-82/