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Shalamar: The 12 Inch Collection

Eight twelve-inch mixes from a group that was assembled by a record label as a studio project and turned into one of the great dance-soul acts of its era.

Shalamar

Shalamar began as a fabrication. Dick Griffey and Soul Train's Don Cornelius created the name for a 1977 disco medley, and only afterwards assembled an actual group: Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel, both dancers from Soul Train, alongside singer Howard Hewett.

What made it work was that all three were genuinely good. Hewett had a superb light tenor, Watley became a major solo artist, and Daniel was an extraordinary dancer — he is widely credited with teaching Michael Jackson the backslide that became the moonwalk.

Signed to SOLAR Records and produced largely by Leon Sylvers III, they made records that sat exactly between disco, boogie and early electro, and they were enormously influential in Britain, where the jazz-funk and soul weekender scene held them in far higher regard than American radio did.

What to listen for

"A Night to Remember" is the one British audiences will name first — a genuine anthem on that side of the Atlantic and a much smaller record at home.

"The Second Time Around" in the original twelve-inch mix is the signature, and it is a perfect demonstration of why the format mattered: the extended arrangement lets the bassline and the handclaps establish themselves before the vocal arrives.

"Take That to the Bank" is the earliest and the most straightforwardly disco, and "Right in the Socket" is the funkiest.

"Make That Move" and "I Can Make You Feel Good" are the boogie-era peaks — that clipped, synthetic bass sound is the Leon Sylvers signature and it turns up everywhere in 1981.

"This Is for the Lover in You" is the ballad, later reworked by Babyface with the original group for a 1996 hit.

"Over and Over" closes things out.

Go deeper

Big Fun (1979) and Three for Love (1980) are the albums.

Jody Watley's solo career deserves following — she won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1988 and her records with André Cymone are excellent.

The SOLAR catalogue is the wider story: The Whispers, Lakeside, Klymaxx and Midnight Star all came from the same label, and Leon Sylvers III produced most of it. That sound — hard synth bass, bright keyboards, handclaps — is one of the most sampled in hip-hop.

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