Song of the Day: Lisa Warrington “I Like The Way You Do It”

This week is Disco Week here at DJ D-Mac & Associates. Every day this week, we will bring you a fresh disco track. Disco as a genre encompasses many different styles, but has its basis in funk, soul, pop and salsa music. The main thing that characterizes disco is a driving “four-on-the-floor” beat, high-hat drum accents and a syncopated bass line  Disco often unfairly gets a bad rap due to the popular blow-back against it in the late 70s and early 80s. While some of this was a reaction to some of the cheesiness associated with some of the more mainstream disco material, some of it was also fear of a musical movement that was strongly associated with African Americans, Latinos and the Gay community. That is subsequently came to be associated with Yuppies, in many ways, robbed disco of its edge. Whit Stilman‘s 1998 film, The Last Days of Disco does a great of presenting both the Yuppie corruptions of disco and more generally what disco meant to people more generally.

To kick things off, I’ve picked one of my all-time favorite disco cuts: The Loni Gamble Band featuring Lisa Warrington‘s 1984 masterpiece, “I Like the Way You Do It”. The song is a subtle groover with a heavy dollop of funk. The song features a tight arrangement with great vocals from Warrington. The song also features a break down towards the end that was clearly a big influence on electronic music pioneer, Aphex Twin, especially on his track “Windowlicker“. While not a lot is known about the Loni Gamble Band or Lisa Warrington (indeed, the 12” for “I Like The Way You Do” is the only credit I can find for either – the record was reissued by Peoples Potential Unlimited, a DC-based reissue label that finds amazing obscure dance music from the 70s and 80s and gets it back into print.

Check back throughout the week for more quality disco tracks.