Jamiroquai
Late Night Tales
Ultra
While Gen. Wesley Clark may be one of the few folks out there who seriously believes in time travel, there are way too many people who love going way back. The atavistic eye is a rose-colored plague on our society. Conservatives love harking back to a “Golden Age” when “America was free” (as Liddy loves to put it); Hollywood constantly churns out “historical” dramas that have little to do with historical truth; fashion constantly borrows from the past; and so much of DJ culture is based on yesteryear. That’s what CD series like Under the Influence and Another Late Night are all about. They are celebrations of great songs past that have affected their featured acts. Now, Ultra has Late Night Tales, which purports to do the same thing.
And the fellas of Jamiroquai have no qualms celebrating the times of oil embargoes and platform shoes. It’s 1978, and it’s all about the disco. Late Night Tales is an electrifyingly fun mix that has you hustling back down Memory Lane. Rufus and Chaka Khan, the Commodores, Sister Sledge, Ashford and Simpson, the Pointer Sisters, Patrice Rushen, and Skyy. They have Ramsey Lewis in his trippy Sun Goddess phase, the ultimately bitter “Here, My Dear” by Marvin Gaye. Leon Ware’s “What’s Your Name” is a great disco ode to the promiscuity of the day. And there’s an utterly fantastic version of “California Dreamin’” by Jose Feliciano. We boot-cut jeans-wearin’, wool-weave coat-havin’ folks already have one foot in the late ’70s. Why not just get the sweat band, velour top, and this disc to make the journey complete?
Ultra Records: http://www.ultrarecords.com/
