I love this interview with Nick Straker, on this lovely non-database/non-https Discog website. Disco and boogie heads will know Nick Straker from the titular Nick Straker Band, whose killer single is “A Little Bit of Jazz”. If you’ve never heard it, stop here and put it on:
I love the way he describes the casual circumstances of recording that song in particular. I’d always assumed the title was something of a joke — I’m pretty sure I picked up the vinyl copy I have because it was misfiled in a jazz bin at a record shop — but no it was actually “a kind of experiment to fuse Eurodisco with Herbie Hancock style Jazzfunk”! I can now hear this, and it makes me love this song even more.
He also describes this bit about how both before and after his brief fame, he played in dub bands, and maybe preferred the backing role:
We recorded one more album, but it was all over really. I’d been working with the Dennis Bovell Dub Band and Linton Kwesi Johnson and preferred that to being a ‘star’. I’d also been writing with China Burton with whom I had another American dance hit “Do you want it right now” (recorded by Siedah Garrett and produced by Jellybean Benitez). The enthusiasm had gone. I’ve got some great memories of that time though, some that are almost physically painful with nostalgia, and many that just make me cringe! Could I do it again? Maybe if I had a personality transplant!!