The EG and West End Remixes Story
Remixes for classic artists and break-through new artists. Multitrack 2 inch tapes from Quincy Jones and Third World's famous Jamaican studios. The amazing Olympic Studios in Barnes (5 mins from my SW13 apartment), Townhouse Studios in Shepherds Bush, PWL in London. My first ever remix done in a New York studio next to the legendary Studio 54 club. Incredible times for a lucky lad from Gravesend..
From 1988’s Rapacious remix of Bobby Brown’s Don’t Be Cruel, with Timmy Regisford and Boyd Jarvis (RIP) in a New York studio next door to the famous Studio 54 Club, there was a period of 10 years intense studio experience which had various personal id’s like Egor, AKA, EG’s Remix, EDdidit and Eddie Gordon before finding a permanent id of WestEnd after the # 3 National hit “The Love I Lost” with Sybil which locked at # 1 in the UK Club Charts for 5 weeks too. After that there was a big demand for WestEnd remixes and we hit the # 1 spot on the UK Club Charts no less than 13 times in the years that followed.
Stand out EG remixes for me in the early days were Bobby Brown’s – Don’t Be Cruel because it was the first one and MCA Records put my name on the front of the sleeve – they didn’t pay me as I was employed by them but the sleeve credit more than made up for that plus being in New York for the first time. Timmy Regisford was instrumental in me joining Motown Records later too.
Pete Pritchard, Steve ‘Barney’ Chase and I did some fabulous work on Eternal’s first six hit singles which all went to No:1 in the UK Club Charts and helped the girls sell 4 million copies of their debut album. Lisa Stansfield – All Around The World remix with its Linda Clifford ‘Runaway Love’ sample really worked a treat as did our work on Lisa’s
first solo hit “This Is The Right Time”. The DOC – Portrait Of A Masterpiece (a Dr Dre production) which we sampled Charles Earland and Teddy Pendergrass on in the studio with CJ Mackintosh. Remixing The Temptations “All I Want From You” for Motown was an honor and it turned out really funky too, once again with my name on the front sleeve. A lucky guy.
The Lonnie Liston Smith sessions in PWL studios were incredible highlights with Lonnie playing keyboards over our remake of his classic Expansions – much loved by EG the disco dancer. Check out Wag Ya Tail’s – ‘Xpand Ya Mind’ those keys are the man himself, nearly blind but on fire in the studio with Aadil, Mike and Kevin on vocals – another UK Club No:1 without any trouble.
The best West End remixes were done with Peter Pritchard, a brilliant classically trained keyboard player and programmer plus Steve ‘Barney’ Chase, a top class recording studio engineer. Together we would spend hours & hours in studios across West London at Olympic or Townhouse creating mix after mix in House, R&B, Trance, Pop and Dub styles, often many different styles for the same song to satisfy the record company or artist. We prided ourselves on being so versatile musically across the genre’s. Pete and Barney are still good close friends today which is a true testament to the quality of our work because some nights the tense creativity in those studios could go on until the early morning and somebody normally hit a moment of inspiration at 3am which meant starting a part all over again then finishing at 6am!
My personal Top 6 West End remixes
No: 1 would be the Millennium mix of The State Of Independence for Donna Summer feat Martin Luther King for the 1996 re-release hit single. Barney and I spent two weeks solid on that remix because we had Quincy Jones’s original master tapes from Qwest Studio’s. Those tapes included backing vocals from Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, James Ingram, Dionne Warwick, Michael McDonald and DeBarge. We turned out a classic for one of my all time favorite artists, Donna Summer, she was amazing to work with. Watching her sing our new version on stage at The Royal Albert Hall was a life moment for me personally.
No: 2 – Ce Ce Peniston’s “Keep On Giving Me Your Love” which was used as the Radio version for BBC Radio 1 and gave Ce Ce another hit record. She was a great artist to work with in the 90’s – so talented.
No: 3 – Dina Carroll’s “Express” as it broke her on Radio and started her solo career with our very funky mix that went straight on the BBC Radio 1 playlist.
No: 4 – Eternal’s “Save Our Love” an inspired session that saw us take an RnB song into a deep gospel influenced house track plus adding a solid RnB mix to the package which combined earned the girls a MixMag Update full front cover as record of the week
No: 5 – Donna Summer’s “Melody Of Love” which brought her back from the wilderness in the UK Charts before I got to join her label and re-do “I Feel Love” and “State Of Independence” as mentioned before. Below is the Dub mix of Melody Of Love for Donna. I loved working with her she was and is one of my favourite artists of all time, such a talented and a warm personality.
No: 6 – Eternal “Just A Step From Heaven” (West End RnB Rub) I heard this again the other day (May 2020) 26 years after we delivered it and wondered if it was actually our most complete remix from the first beat to the last. It’s a tapestry of creativity. Its a DJ’s video but the mix sounds good and the track starts with a familiar voice !!. Great EG ending too, all trippy over the girls vocals.
No: 7 – Eternal ” I’ll Be There” No remix this time but a song I found for Eternal in 1993 from Geoffrey Williams called “I’ll Be There” which went on the girl’s debut million selling album ‘Always & Forever’ production sounds dated now but an excellent vocal from Easther Bennett, wow she could sing, I loved her voice.
I also must give a mention to the 13 Minute Dub version of WestEnd feat Sybil – The Love I Lost, re-titled The Love I Dub. We created 6 mixes for that and then re-edited the best parts from all six into one 13 minute mix that rocked the Ministry Of Sound dance floor for months being played by the best USA and UK House DJ’s on that great MOS sound system. When you are on the dancefloor enjoying yourself then the DJ drops one of your remixes into his set out of the blue it’s an incredible feeling – you want to shout “that’s mine” but you have to keep it cool and just watch the floor grooving to something that you know every single beat and sound of.
I have a lot of people to thank for my EG/Westend remix career and they include Adrian Sykes, Bob Fisher, Timmy Regisford, Boyd Jarvis (RIP), Denis Ingoldsby, Peter Pritchard, Steve ‘ Barney’ Chase, Peter Oxendale, Steve Wolf, Nigel Lowis, Paul Witts, John Trott, Penny (Townhouse), Lola (Sarm West), Greg Castell, Richard Marshall, Tony Cook and Asher (we changed the sound of the famous PWL Studios with that Sybil record), Tilly Rutherford, Les Sharma, Pete Day, Pete Waterman, Phil France RIP, Aadil Rasheed, Paul Kindred, Charvonne (Olympic), C&C Music Factory, Tony Humphries, CJ Mac, David Morales, Frankie Knuckles and Todd Terry for the benchmarks, all the artists and backing singers who came back into the studio to re-sing their songs in different keys so we could weave our Westend magic for them.
Thank you David Cole (RIP) for the inspiration – you were the man who lit up the New York dancefloors with your magic keyboard playing. The quality of dance music from that city changed forever after you left us such was your talent. A Deeper Love, A Deeper Deeper Love – PRIDE. A true genius.
West End & EG Remixes 1988 - 2004
Directed by Eddie ‘Ears’ Gordon and created with the genius talents of the following combinations into the early hours of many mornings and hitting the # 1 Position in the UK Club Charts more than 30 times. We could have had our own Top 30 Chart.
Tony King – engineer-programmer PWL
Asha – keyboards-programmer PWL
Steve ‘Barney’ Chase – engineer Townhouse/Olympic
Peter Pritchard – keyboard-programmer genius Townhouse/Olympic
Peter Oxendale – keyboards-programmer Townhouse/Olympic
Phil Legg – keyboards-programmer Townhouse/Olympic
Nigel Lowis – keyboards-programmer Townhouse/Olympic
Ren Swan – engineer – Sarm East & West
Timmy Regisford – Engineer – Manhattan, NYC
Boyd Jarvis – Keyboards – Manhattan, NYC
Paul Witts – keyboards-programmer-Various studios
My final remix in 2004 was with Karen Ramirez – a cover of the Eagles classic song “The Best Of My Love” done in a hypnotic simple piano chords, drums and bass guitar with Karen’s voice taking the song to a totally new place. The release never came out commercially as I started making plans to move to California but I have never stopped enjoying the finished production. Karen strips the song to its very soul in my opinion.
