Happy Days Original Disco Joints Remastered (Vol 1-4)Written by Manu Ekanayake  Album Review -Disco is not just the ultra-fashionable music of today; it’s also the soundtrack that shaped modern clubland from its very beginnings. So with that in mind Boy’s Own’s Terry Farley and his Faith Fanzine cohort Dave Jarvis have collected together four volumes of disco classics for our enjoyment. Expect to be entertained and educated too, as Farley and Jarvo take us back to a time before dance music ruled the dancefloor. Frankie Knuckles didn’t grow up listening to house and neither did Ron Hardy or Larry Levan. They were the creators of house music, but they (and their ilk) had to get their inspiration from somewhere else. And that ‘somewhere else’ was disco – which was the soundtrack to 70s and 80s dancefloors all over the world, from Margate to Manhattan and from Wood Green to Watts. That’s the main thing that Terry Farley and Dave Jarvis are trying to showcase here: the universal nature of the best disco sounds. The renewed popularity of disco has allowed it to come out from the shadow of the those few terrible records your parents owned, into an appreciation of a genre that’s as complex and varied as rock n roll itself – whilst also being the soundtrack to the nights out of some of dance music’s founding fathers. Terry and Dave have been part of the UK club scene from the late 70s disco era on to the acid house explosion and beyond, so they know which gems to pick out – tracks like Sunburst by Lonnie Liston Smith and Herbie Hancock’s Hang Up Your Hang Ups (both Vol 1) are pure funk business and could be played at any Dalston all-nighter, while one listen to the original of Who Is He (And What Is He To You)? (Vo 2) by Bill Withers will show you why Henrik Schwarz chose to re-edit it in the first place. Tracks like Nina Simone’s The Pusher provide a soulful, elegiac groove, the perfect counterpart to more upbeat cuts like the sax-fuelled Once I’ve Been There by Norman Conners (both Vol 3) and finally, don’t even think about sleeping on true classics like It’s Just Begun by Jimmy Castor and Sneakin’ Up On You by The Brecker Brothers (Vol 4). And if you need a laugh, there’s always Boogie In Your Butt by Eddie Murphy. Yeah, it was big on the early London warehouse scene, according to Farley’s lovingly rendered in-lay notes... Rating: 9.5/10 Tracklist
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