Introduction To Joey Negro

Lately I’ve been raving about Joey Negro‘s Eclectic mix to some people and the reactions I usually get are “Joey Who?” or “That filtered House guy?”. Both prove a terrible lack of knowledge about quality soulful music and deserve nothing less than several months of punishment in a North-Korean bootcamp. But let me enlighten you a bit to avoid that.

Dave Lee (that’s his real name) is also known as Raven Maize, Sunburst Band, Doug Willis, Jakkata and a few other aliases. That might ring a bell or two. If not here’s some more. He started Republic records at the end of the ‘80s introducing New Jersey House in Europe (first release was Phase II’s “Reachin'”, a proper Onda Sonora classic). For that alone he deserves a statue. Nowadays he’s got Z-Factor to enlighten us with releases.

But there’s more. He put together some outstanding, and for me essential lessons, compilations. My favourites being the “Disco Spectrum” series on BBE, “the Voyage – Excursions into early House music” and the “Soul Of Disco” mixes on Z-Factor.

But there’s much more to dive into. On the production front there are the many Disco influenced cuts under the many monikers he has, there’s the excellent output as Sunburst Band and the uncountable ace edits he did. There are compilation galore to get yourself introduced like both volumes of “The Many Facets of Joey Negro” or the “Can’t Get High Without You” / “Back To The Scene Of The Crime” on Azuli.

Get studying and discover a universe of goodness. As an introduction here’s volume 1 and volume 2 of his Eclectic mix. It’s one of my favourite mixes ever and without doubt another important lesson for me teached by grandmaster Joey Negro. Enjoy.