Monday, December 22, 2008
Colonel Abrams
On the top shelf of the Soul Closet, right beside the wave cap and brush: the great Colonel Abrams singing "Trapped" from 1985. I can't even list all the things I like about this video. The flattop. The jacket with the spangled epaulets. The part when he's behind the jail bars. I'm digging it all.
Looking back on it now, the good Colonel is a heck of singer; his voice cuts through and rides the dominant House beat while a lesser singer would have been left adrift in synths and drum machines.
Uh, speaking of lesser singers, this post gives me a chance to re-air a 20-year-old beef. Stock Aitken Waterman, the UK producers behind this jam, lifted their own work to create a song in 1987 for this guy.
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4 comments:
OMG I just got "Rick Rolled" reading your blog! LOL!
HAHA! When I wrote this post, I started to say "any Rick Rolling is unintentional"
Correction:- Stock,Aitken and Waterman did not produce "Trapped."
"Trapped' was produced by Colonel Abrams himself and Richard Burgess.It was ripped off by Rick Astley who you could tell was also trying to sing like the great Colonel, but it did not work.When I lived in New York during the eighties, I can tell you that 'Trapped' sold 4 million copies Stateside alone by the end of 1986, and that doesn't take into consideration the sales in Europe and the rest of the world.It is till selling now, and during a New York Kiss F.M. interview in 2005, Colonel revealed that 'Trapped had so far sold at least 9 million copies worldwide.It was a massive song, and very profitable as there was little internet piracy back then.Being a D.J., I always followed the other charts and what Colonel has done is built up a massive underground following so that even though some of his more recent stuff has not charted as highly in the main charts, people still continue to buy his music.Finally,as someone who knows Colonel personally (and for those who do not know, he is 6ft 4 and a black belt in martial arts), it is good to see that Colonel is still producing music and has a new album due for release this year (2009) entitled "A Tribute to my brother." Buy Colonels recent releases on Traxsource.com. Still the best house-soul artist ever.
Thank you to our anonymous Soul Close reader who set the record straight on "Trapped" and provided an update on the Colonel's goings-on. Glad to see the master is still in the game and I'll be paying traxsource.com a visit.
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