Submitted By: greavsey

Genre: House

Date of Set: 1985

Filesize: 21.30 MB

Total Downloads: 21

Larry Levan is one of the true Legends in the DJ culture. He and 'his' just as legendary club, the Paradise Garage, were so influential to the Disco and dance music scene that it's hard to understand today. Many writers and producers tried their new work with Larry at 'the Garage', if it worked there, it would work everywhere! Larry and the club meant so much to the music industry that a genre of New York House music got the name, Garage. Larry Levan, or Lawrence Philpot which was Larry's real name, was born in July 21, 1954 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. In his youth he met a guy who would become a friend for life and also, just as Larry, one of the highest regarded DJs of the world, namely, Frankie Knuckles. Frankie tells me the following about his friend; 'There's a lot of things I can say about him. He was a lot of fun, you know. He was very inspirational. He was a, I don't know, a. It's a little bit difficult to talk about him.'

The friends, Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, both started their careers and learned how to beat mix at Nicky Siano's popular club, the Gallery. It was actually Frankie who first became friends with Robin, Nicky's girlfriend, she introduced Frankie to Nicky and he got a job as a DJ in the club. Frankie introduced Nicky to a 'wild, but very talented' friend of him, Larry Levan. Larry got hired as well and soon he and Nicky became best friends. Nicky tells me one memory of his dear friend Larry. 'Larry and I were in Gallery one day, and Larry was not exactly the most masculine guy, especially around me, we used to camp it up a lot. Anyway, we were at the gallery one night and we hear someone breaking in, so Larry goes and gets a crow bar we had in the back, and we ambush the burglar and Larry says in his most butch voice 'Hold it right there bro'. Well, I just cracked up laughing and the burglar thought we were both out of our minds. '

In 1973 Levan left the Gallery to play at a club located at 73rd & Broadway called the Continental Baths. Frankie later ended up working with Larry again at 'the Baths' and Frankie kept working there until the club's closure in 1976. Then the club was turned into the swingers club Plato's Retreat, which Joe Thomas sang about in his 1978 hit with the same name. But Larry left the club much before this to work in a club called Reade Street and then opened up his own club, the Soho Place. He enters the Disco scene BIG time in 1977 when the legendary Paradise Garage opened at 84 King Street, New York. Larry was the resident DJ of 'the Garage' and to many people he was 'the Garage'. Lots of people, and other DJs, came to the club just to hear him play.

Together with the sound engineer of the club, Richard Long, they managed to put together the worlds best sound system. Because, from any point on the dancefloor, center to sides and corners, the bass was numbin', clean and forceful thumping directly into your breast bone. However, the most amazing thing was you could not tell where the music was being generated. The sound was so good that it has been told the whole system were sold to the Ministry of Sound in London when the Garage were forced to close down in September 26, 1987. But, that's not true. The sound system was installed at a club called the Paradise Ballroom on W. 43rd St., New York. Sadly that club didn't live that long and the system was actually auctioned off. No matter, Larry along with his friend and fellow DJ Bert Bevans were hired to help out install and open up Ministry of Sound [MoS] to get the same wonderful sound as the Garage had. Bert tells me; 'MoS was a 'Dream' comes true. After the Garage, That was the Best System in the World. Larry and I had a Love-and-Hate relationship, sometimes it was good other time's. In addition, when we opened MoS we hung out in London 4-5 months together, so that was cool.' Bert later told me that MoS was originally only open on Fridays and Saturdays, so the other days of the week he and Larry used to hang out and sometimes even sneak into the club (since they had keys) at nights mixing and testing new stuff just for fun.

I recently got a chance to talk to Mel Cheren, the owner and former of West End Records. Mel told me much about West End, the Garage and Larry Levan. The Paradise Garage was owned by a man called Michael Brody and Mel says; '(the late) Michael Brody was my life partner, so the connection to the Garage was natural. I've got lots of memories of Larry Levan and the Garage that's very important to me.' Mr. Cheren will share much more of his memories of Larry, the Garage, his life, West End Records and the whole Disco Era in the book, Keep on Dancing, which came out in July 2000. Mel continues talking 'bout the Garage and the book. 'I really hope someone would like to make a movie out of the book and that they for the movie would restore the Garage to it's original condition. And then open it again with a diner in the bottom floor, which never was used before, like the Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood. I really wish the profit should go to charity. Also, I've got the ashes of the late Larry Levan and I would like to have the urn with the ashes in the entrance of the Garage so the fans from all over would be able to see it.'. I ask if he have got any other special memories or comments on some of the West End acts, Larry or something else. Mel tells me; 'I've got too much memories to tell. That's basically the whole book. But everything of Michael, Larry, the Garage and the whole start of the Disco era is very precious to me.' Mel adds 'Once Larry likes a record he just starts mixing. He must have had twelve versions of it. Nearly put us out of business mixing that record. Larry had handwritten his top ten list which he posted in the DJ booth: 'Serious' was his #1 favorite record.'

Also Kenton Nix, the writer of Taana Gardner's West End hits, told me some memories of Larry. Kenton had a test pressing of a song he called 'Work that body'. The record didn't even had any vocals yet, but he brought the record to the Paradise Garage and gave it to Larry in the DJ booth. Larry and the crowd loved the record and Kenton asked Larry if he couldn't help him get the record to SalSoul Records. But Larry replied; 'No, we're not gonna go to SalSoul, this is a West End's Record, we gonna give this to West End.' And since Mel Cheren, the owner and former of West End Records, was part owner of the club, Kenton got to meet him, it hit off and Kenton got a contract with West End. Kenton Nix's first song out on West End Records was just 'Work that body', but now Taana Gardner's vocals was added. This Disco workout was followed by other hits for Taana like 'When you touch me', 'No frills' and the song that's actually West End's biggest hit today, 'Heartbeat'. And it was Larry who made the great remixes of all Taana Gardner's hits.

Kenton Nix made it all the way to Larry's DJ booth. Another guy and a friend of Larry's who also used to hang out in the booth was the L.A. DJ, DJ Blue. He told me the following; 'I grew up in New York and did the club thing back in the late 70's and early 80's. I met Larry Levan way before he was a DJ at the Garage. He was working at a club called Reade Street. I was a young club dancer and Larry had a thing for me. So When I would go to the club he would let me hang out in the booth with him. I had played around with mixing but nothing too serious. Then one nite Larry, Frankie [Knuckles] and myself were in the club and Larry (who would do just about any drug you gave him) had some angel dust and we smoked in the booth. A half hour later we were trippin' our butts off. So now the club is packed with people and Larry being the clown he was said to me 'hey mix awhile' I was stunned. Here was one of the greatest DJs I know letting me play in his club. I laughed, Frankie laughed, but Larry was serious. So I played for 2 hours. But the funny thing was Larry thought I was good, and that was all I needed. I stopped dancing and devoted all my time to perfecting my mixing. I spent many years in the booths of both Larry and Frankie, and they taught me alot.'

One of the few female DJs Lizzz Kritzer was intruduced to Larry and the Garage by another famous female DJ, Sharon White, Lizzz tells me: 'At the Garage, I used to store my coat under Larry Levan's turntables and we would hang out in the booth.' Bert Bevans who also was friends with Larry and one of the few besides Larry who have played the Garage told me; 'Did you know that they fired Larry from the Garage because there were too many Black kids coming to the Garage. They had these 'White Parties' with Jim Burgess, Howard Merritt, Roy Thode and Sharon White. For 4 Months there we NO BLACK PEOPLE in the Garage and when Larry finally took over again, some of the Original Black folks never came back.' During this time when Larry didn't play the Garage, Bert, Larry and Bert's twin brother Robert, used to go out clubbing at Studio 54 and other hot clubs. Steve Rubell, owner of '54', used to try to talk Larry into start playing at '54' instead, but Larry always replied 'They're not ready for me yet.'. Which most likely was correct. Then Larry and Steve used to go get high together.

Larry's very own mixing style, were he used a songs instrumental parts, break beats and accapellas to make completely new 'live' remixes of the songs he choose to play, inspired lots of other DJs to try the same, made the audience go wild and. led him into the studio as a 12'singles remixer. His remixes are much like the style he had when spinning at 'the Garage'. It's almost like a dub type kind of mixes, often with long instrumental parts and building DJ-friendly intros. On top of this he put lots of heavy basslines. And his remixes sounds as brilliant today as they did around 20 years ago. Kenton Nix told me this about his friends DJ'ing and the music at the Garage; 'You know, the way Larry played it, it was, it was just something that would never be again. I would love to see it, but it's just something that's. that's almost like, perfect.' He continues; 'I still think he's the greatest of all times. Larry is the greatest of all times. You know, he will go down in history as that. I mean, every DJ knows it. So, like I said, it must be heavy to revered as much as this guy has been musically. There's really nothing you could. You would really be cheating him if you said anything less.'

Taana has nothing but good things to say about Larry; 'Larry, he was very sweet, very sweet, always to me. Larry did his own thing. But he always wanted to know, 'Taana are you happy with your vocal, do you wanna redo anything?' Or he would call me in to say 'Can you do something a little different here and a little different there?' And when we worked we just clicked from day one.' Another comment I've heard is; 'On the deejay side Larry Levan was huge!! His mixes were like 'butta' smoothe, hot dripping and wet!!! He truly was a pioneer of the beat mix, and now there is actually a Grammy Award for 'remixer'. I would love to see a posthumous award in his honor. ' and I can really agree with that. Other comments on his very wicked, but still great, spinning is stories like this; 'The best night of my life was June of 1984, when Larry played 'Music is the Answer' by Colonel Abrams for one whole hour! Mixed up with Betty Wright's 'One Step Up, Two Steps Back'! Another story is when he first played the Peech Boys' 'Life is something special'. He teased everyone by playing bits and pieces of it mixed into other records throughout the whole evening until he finally decided to play the whole thing. But a 'standard' Levan mix would usually last for some 15-20 minutes with added extracts of other songs and sound effects.

He really knew his value and the effect he had on the crowd, you can say he was kind of a Diva in his own way, You know, sometimes he wouldn’t play the next record until you applauded him. Larry was also very persistent if he believed in a record, like when he first played Taana Gardner's 'Heartbeat' at the Garage. With it's slow tempo and everything, it was way too slow for the audience in the club and the dance floor was left empty. But Larry didn't give up, he kept playing the tune several times a night and within a few weeks everyone was running TO the floor instead of OFF the floor when it was played. This song also became the biggest selling record ever in the little record store just around the corner from the club, Vinylmania. They sold over 5000 (!!!) copies of the 12'single.

Larry was a popular remixer and producer with New York labels like West End Records and SalSoul Records. For West End he remixed for example; Ednah Holt 'Serious, Sirius space party', New York Citi Peech Boys classic 'Don't make me wait', Loose Joints 'Is it all over my face' and as mentioned before, all of Taana Gardner's hits. New York Citi Peech Boys was actually Larry Levan's own band and project. Originally they called themselves just the Peech Boys, but the Beach Boys thought Peech Boys name was too close to theirs, so to avoid to get sued Larry and the band decided to add New York Citi before their name.

In July 1999, West End Records returned with their first album release in 20 years and what could be more appropriate than a album with classic Larry remixes. The album is called; Larry Levan's Classic West End Remixes (Made Famous at the Legendary Paradise Garage). It includes 9 tracks all digitally remastered specially for this release. In the inlay to this CD, Kenton Nix, recalls how Ednah Holt's 'Serious, Sirius space party' came about; 'Larry and I were Trekkies and Star Wars freaks. Larry said to me, why don't you write a song about a party in outer space and talk about the characters like they are at the Garage and the Garage is in space and everyone has a membership: you know, Darth, Kirk, Luke, OB1 and everybody. And they're just rocking, just up there dancing. So I did it, but Larry thought it didn't have enough space effects, didn't think it sounded like it was really in outer space so he did this remix. Larry wanted something out there, but funky.'

Another Larry Levan myth is told about this Ednah Holt song, it's about a never-before-released dub version of the song titled 'Serious, Serius Sax Party'. Rumor has it that Levan was so enamored of this very mix that he pressed up 100 white labels, stamped them 'Serious, Sirius Sax Party', and tossed them out of his DJ booth late one (1981) night at The Paradise Garage. Occasionally one of these highly prized white labels surfaces, feverishly fetching upwards of $140. --This via Stephan Prescott, owner of Dance Tracks in Manhattan's East Village. Another little trivia that can be fun to know is that Ednah Holt was once a member of the hit R&B/disco group, The Ritchie Family.

It isn't hard to understand why Larry Levan has become a DJs favorite. He's still a hero to many DJs all over the world. He was one of a kind, and lots of DJs and 'clubbers' all around the globe misses a great entertainer and a excellent remixer! His memory will live on.

http://www.discomuseum.com/LarryLevan.html

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