Sylvester ~ You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) 1978 Disco Purrfection Version

Here is a classic to end Pride Month and for the upcoming Canadian National Holiday and US 4th of July celebrations! Sorry it took so long to complete....The intro is Sunday morning, the rest is Saturday night. This song took what Donna Summer did with "I Feel Love" added some gospel vocals and became the new direction of disco and pop music with the incredibly tuneful and rhythmic "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Patrick Cowley transformed a slow burning gospel like track by speeding up the beats and created this cushy and lush electronic atmospheric energy that still resonates today. Other remixes have blanched the electrified sounds by remixers putting their personal stamp on it, changing out the drums and what not to make it sound more contemporary. I think they kill the vibe of the tune. My mission is to keep the original vibe but open it up to extend it and display the dazzling array of synths and add a breakdown segment. I respect the hell out of the original so much so that adding "my sound" to it never crossed my mind. I just dusted it off and figured out how to make the feeling last longer...Sylvester and Patrick created a disco classic that spent eight energy fuelled weeks at #1 disco and the dancefloor was never the same after that. I was able to locate the original music tracks and was ecstatic to find out that the reprise version of the song is what was originally the intro to the disco version. The slow tempoed intro gracefully moves into high gear with hand claps, with Sylvester and his two tons o'fun, Izora Rhodes and Martha Wash scatting and improvising bringing even more heat to the percussive intro and then giving it up when the rhythm track comes in and the song takes off into the stratosphere...excellent choice for that late night last dance. The song was recorded and released in late 78, and entered the pop chart in January of 1979 at #79 and peaked at #36. I never realized how warm the electronic instrumentation feels, no strings, just all the synths you can handle along with that frickin bassline that pumps followed by the synths that bring a new dimension in building and building until Sylvester wails in his signature falsetto that reaches such incredible peaks only a synth sweep could finish the musical phrase. Incredible! I hope they do a life story of Sylvester, a true innovator and icon who really cared about his people. Who do you think would be Did you know all the royalties from his music goes to Project Open Hand and the AIDS Emergency Fund. He passed away in 1988 in debt from the royalty advances he received, but by 1993, the debt had been paid off and a royalty check of $140,000 was split between the two charities and they still receive regular checks from his music today. The gift that keeps on giving....Recently, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Music critic Robert Christgau has said this song is "one of those surges of sustained, stylized energy that is disco's great gift to pop music"....