Get Into The Groove

When I was about 14 I earned my first own money and started to buy records as much as I could afford them. We write the year 1980: Disco is dead and Rock is back again.

On the radio they played a lot of tracks by Journey, Van Halen, Queen, Tom Petty, & Eagles.

I was more into Bob Seger, Christopher Cross, Dan Fogleberg, Billy Joel, Donald Fagen, kind of stuff. I prefered mostly soft & easy-listening tracks. My favorite tracks were "I'm Born Again" by Preston & Syreeta, "Against The Wind" Bob Seger and "Sailing" by Chris Cross - wasn't I damn romantic?

With friends the same age, we started listening and sharing the music we bought. When we met, we were like: "Hey listen to this great track, listen to that one...great beat, oh...I got a brand new one here, you gotta check it out..." and so on.

And I started to either dance to the music or put on records at parties to friends/people who wanted to get down. That was mainly during the years 82 - 87. We danced to the hits of the J. Geils Band, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Billy Ocean, Eddie Grant, Ray Parker Jr., Madonna, Talking Heads, Cyndi Lauper and many others.

It was the 80's pop music that ruled & dictated the rhythm of my life at that time and I wasn't looking or needing anything else.

But it was only in the 90's that I really started to feel the groove of music by listening to Acid-Jazz artists like Brand New Heavies, Working Week, Incognito and the Jazz-Funk band James Taylor Quartet. Here, it was not only my legs that wanted to move but also my soul.

By feeling the groove in music I became again more open and interested in Jazz, Soul, Funk & World music.

There are many descriptions about "the groove" of music. To me it means, that a song moves me deeply on a physical and mental level, a song that makes me shake, shiver, smile or almost cry. It can at times even put me into a light state of trance.

Here are a few examples of songs that are full of groove to me:

"I Can't Stand It" by the James Taylor Quartet (shake)
"Our Roots" by Pharoah Sanders (shake)
"Rising To The Top" by Blacknuss Allstars (shake)
"Good Love" by Incognito (shiver)
"Someone Will Take The Place Of You" by Isaac Hayes (shiver)
"Agua De Coco" by Marcos Valle (smile)
"IGY" by Donald Fagen (smile)
"Summer" by Booster (smile)
"Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell (cry)
"Language" by Suzanne Vega (cry)

Read my next blog..."GrooveFM.fi vs. SwissGroove.ch"