In 1988’s I was lucky enough to remix Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” with Timmy Regisford and Boyd Jarvis (RIP) in New York in a studio next to the famous Studio 54 Nightclub it was my first ever creative time in a recording studio. I didn’t know my way around all the equipment but I knew what I wanted to do to the record which was to beef up the bottom end, change the bassline and move certain parts of the track around into places where they pushed the song out stronger plus move the angelic orchestral part from the middle 8 to the Intro to set up the track for UK radio.
The first time I heard it on BBC Radio 1 in the daytime I was like “oh my god that’s the mix we did in New York!” MCA Records put my name on the front of the sleeve – they didn’t pay me as it was the record company I was employed by but the sleeve credit more than made up for that and being in New York remixing a US song for the first time. Timmy Regisford was instrumental in me joining Motown Records later too, he was a true music man and created a New York club legend with his, now sadly closed club, The Shelter in Manhattan, New York.