Mastermixes by Various Artists - Cosmic Car Records [SPE001]

Mastermixes

Various Artists

A 13 track album (1h 8m 56s) — released March 26th 2012 on Cosmic Car Records

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Remixer Shep Pettibone first emerged during the early '80s as a force in disco, boogie, hip-hop and house. Starting with Arthur Baker, he was responsible for Afrika Bambaataa and the Jazzy Five's influential "Jazzy Sensation," and concurrent with the rise of scratching and other turntable innovations created KISS-FM's "MasterMixes." By the mid-'80s,Pettibone was in hot demand, producing and remixing tracks for such dance-pop innovators as the Pet Shop Boys and New Order; his most successful collaboration, however, was with Madonna, for whom he produced a series of hits, including "Vogue," "Causing a Commotion," and "Justify My Love."For a long time it was impossible to live in New York without hearing 'This is a KISS Master Mix... Mix... Mix... by Shep Pettibone!' resounding across the airwaves and into the streets. While there had been disco radio mixes before Pettibone, there was never anything like the buzz that kept building on the streets until demand was such for his remixed tapes that Prelude released the landmark KISS Master Mixes LP. Pettibone, at 22, worked part time at 'WBLS, where he won recognition for his remix of MFSB's 'Love Is The Message' in 1980. Shep's perspective differed from others in that he had a strong pop orientation and the fact that he liked to get right to the point, where the remix needed to be as familiar as the song itself. Stating in a rare interview with Steven Harvey which appeared in the Collusion magazine in1983 "Basically, it's up to my mood and my feeling. Nobody calls me and tells me what to do. I've gone two weeks at a time without a take on a mix, and then I'll turn around and produce four in one week. The key is to make each one different". Shep's "Mastermixes" were remixes of hit post-disco and dance songs of the time, and continued into 1983, after which Shep became more closely involved with Salsoul Records and expanded into studio mixing and production. He was one of the first to submit multiple remixes (with different approaches) to be released all on the same single. Today this is standard practice to market a song to a multitude of different radio formats and markets.Shep's "Mastermixes" would often incorporate the "dub" version or instrumental version of the 12" single, using the vocal-only track or other unique portions of the various versions of the 12" singles. Shep made ample use of tape splicing and other methods of editing to create repetitive lines of music or vocals, often in quick, staccato rhythm, and he also made judicious use of tape delay and digital delay effects, usually opting for an eighth-note 'triplet' continuous echo effect either effected on a specific vocal or musical point, or set on a continuous mode with limited delay length to allow for an echoing effect as the music played.Some "Mastermixes" he did for 98.7 Kiss FM which featured these effects significantly include those for "Do It To The Music" by Raw Silk, and "So Fine" by Howard Johnson (both hits in 1982). In late 1982 Prelude Records released the infamous double-album LP set of "Mastermixes" by Shep Pettibone for a number of Prelude-released songs. The remixes Shep did for D-Train's "You're The One For Me" and "Keep On" are considered classic "Mastermixes" from this set.Shep Pettibone added to his work at 98.7 Kiss FM from 1982 by working in the studio on a number of well known 12" singles for Salsoul Records in 1983, including hits by Skyy, Inner Life, the Salsoul Orchestra and Loleatta Holloway, among others. His now classic remix of First Choice's "Let No Man Put Asunder" is the version now found in the majority of urban DJ's record crates.During Shep Pettibone's peak years at the end of the 1980s, he copied an effect of the use of a sequenced "machine gun"-sounding snare drum sequencing of the Roland TR-909 drum machine, typically as an end-of-bar fill. Shep's "bazooka snare" evolved into a singular sound that can be used with great accuracy to identify his remixes from the period 1988 to 1992, though his attempt to claim credit for the initial use is spurious. Current hip hop and dance recordings, such as the long mix of Beyoncé's "Sweet Dreams" or Azari & III 'Reckless With Your Love' continue this tradition. During his hiatus from radio remixing, Pettibone played records at Better Days, a Black gay bar in the Times Square area. Every club's sound reflects its demographics and, at Better Days, Pettibone spun almost exclusively Black urban post R&B style disco. He constantly mixed over-the records, dropping in extra hand claps (like the delayed intro clap in Prince Charles' 'Jungle Stomp') and effects and hardly ever seemed to let a record play through. The peak would come when he juxtaposed an accapella such as a version of Chocolate Milk's 'Who's Getting It Now' with the instrumental version of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', creating a new song that remains perfectly in sync for minutes; A DJ practice that is now standard in a digital age and with software but back then he was constantly having to tease the discs with his finger and tapping the rims of the turntable to bring records into sync. At Better Days, where Shep Pettibone was often to be found spinning alongside the club's infamous resident Tee Scott, the loyal crowd there had nostalgia for old classics. In the original Collusion interview he tells Steven Harvey, "True. The music right now is not good. I'm sick of hearing drums and synthesizers. I'd like to hear music again; Strangely enough, all these computer records started after 'Thanks To You' by Sinnamon. It was kind of like that computer sound within a Black vein." Although never the intention of the inventor, re-mixers such as Pettibone have generated a culture of re-mixers who now have the ability to reach a higher status of recognition than the artist they mix and achieve a legacy that can be even more enduring. Over the years since following Shep taking a back seat from studio a number of porducers both in the States and in Europe have been inspired by his pioneering early work including Masters At Work, Steve 'Silk' Hurley, Jellybean Benitez, Joey Negro, Greg Wilson, and Tensnake,
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