Choice: A Collection of Classics

• Artist: Kenny Dope
• Rating:
• Release Date: May 02, 2006
• Type: Video, Mix-album
• Genre: Electronica

Review

Seminal New York DJ Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez, best known as a beatmaker and producer for Masters at Work and Nuyorican Soul, comes from a diverse musical background, a background that ended up assisting him greatly in making significant contributions to house and dance music. To demonstrate this upbringing, he, with the help of Azuli Records, assembled some of the tracks that influenced him the most and mixed them together (though there is a limited-edition unmixed DJ version) into Choice: A Collection of Classics (and the 11th in the label's Choice series). More than anything, the album shows the producer doing what he loves to do, with the songs that he loves to do it with. It doesn't present anything that's completely unexpected -- there's a Patrick Adams song, one by Dazzle, as well as R&B and disco cuts from James Ingram, the Fantastic Aleems, Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, and James Brown -- but it's a nice selection of music mostly from the '70s and '80s, Gonzalez's prime influential period, and the era whose records he uses most when making his own music. Being that the DJ is an admitted vinyl head, there are also some pretty rare tracks on Choice, including "Ain't No Need" by the mysterious Skye, "Come on Baby, Pt. 1" by the one-hit Bahamian soul group Beginning of the End, as well as "Super Strut" from the Kashmere Stage Band, a high-school funk band out of Houston that produced scores of talented musicians, jazz guitarist Melvin Sparks to name just one. The album grooves and slides along nicely, and it's easy to tell that Gonzalez is having a good time mixing it all together, filling out overly electronic beats with warmer tones and additions, playing around with disco, Latin, hip-hop, and soul, and proving once again why he's so deserving of such a compilation. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide

Tracks

CD 1

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
Confusion		The Fantastic Aleems	(3:31)
Evil	P.C. Bailey	Earth, Wind & Fire	(2:56)
Groove on Down		Dunn Pearson, Jr.	(3:32)
Ain't No Need			(3:44)
Starchild	Mark King, Phil Gould	Level 42	(4:39)
What You Gotta Do			(3:15)
Land of Hunger	The Earons	The Earons	(3:01)
Sound of Music	Shawn Sandridge	Dayton	(2:14)
Till You Surrender	Patrick Adams	Rainbow Brown	(4:43)
Got to Get Out of Here		Lucy Hawkins	(1:55)
Open Sesame	Ronald Bell	Kool & the Gang	(4:05)
Once I've Been There	Phillip Mitchell		(4:21)
Come on Baby, Pt. 1		The Beginning of the End	(3:25)
Advice from Father		Buari	(4:33)
Love Supreme	Milton Hamilton	Milton Hamilton	(6:03)
You Don't Know	Anthony Malloy	Serious Intention	(5:40)
I Need You	Eric Robinson		(5:27)

CD 2

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
It Takes a Minute	Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter	Fred Taveres	(5:04)
Together Forever		Exodus	(3:06)
Satisfied			(5:29)
Twilight Zone	Bernard Herrmann	The Manhattan Transfer	(5:28)
Dancing in Outer Space	Stanislaw Soyka	Atmosfear	(2:26)
Dazzle Me			(4:37)
Mi Sabrina Tequana	James Ingram	Ingram	(2:57)
Southern Freeez		Freeez	(4:29)
Energy Level	Carlos Ward, Dennis Rowe, Barbara Joyce Lomas, Bill Risbrook	B.T. Express	(4:43)
Sound Table			(4:39)
Super Strut	Eumir Deodato		(6:37)
Nowhere [Danny Krivit Edit]		Hokus Pokus	(5:33)

Credits

Philip Bailey (Producer), Maurice White (Producer), Dunn Pearson, Jr. (Piano), Mike Vernon (Producer), Jackie Cooper (Drums), Larkin Arnold (Executive Producer), Skip Drinkwater (Producer), Preston Glass (Producer), Steve Jerome (Engineer), Dennis Lambert (Producer), Brian Potter (Producer), Charles Stepney (Producer), Joseph Wissert (Producer), Don Cornelius (Producer), Fred Taveres (Performer), Jim De Barros (Director), Roman Stewart (Producer), Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez (Remix Producer), Lou Hemsey (Arranger), Lou Hemsey (Producer), Al McCay (Producer), The Fantastic Aleems (Performer), Lucy Hawkins (Performer), Bobby Johnson, Jr. (Bass), Russell Evans (Guitar)