As always I was trolling You Tube last night and I came across this documentary I had not seen in years. Back in 1995 I had the pleasure to meet CJ who is the host/tour guide on this trip around D.C. circa 1984/1985. CJ was kind enough to give myself a copy of this doc as I was preparing to open a youth center where the focus would be on music as a tool to provide safe and productive activities in the afterschool hours.
My hometown located 112 miles south of D.C. has always had an affinity for Go Go music and this doc served as a fantastic teaching tool for me because the younger musicians that I was working with had come of age in a different era of Go Go. ’84 was still the era of the big bands with horn sections, faster tempos and more virtuosic ensemble and solo playing.
For my money the BBC puts together very well produced documentaries and you will hear from some of the seminal players of the era both musically and on the business and cultural side of the music.
Checkout the rest of the episodes after the jump.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.
Thanks for putting this up. I was looking at Wikipedia just like two days ago, search for go go stuff at random. I saw this doc mentioned on one of the pages, but couldn’t find it. Thanks!!! I was born in DC, and lived there till I was 10 roughly ’79-80, and never lived there again, but that’s where mothership is for my family and still is to this day. Needless to say while go-go was taking off I lived in the midwest (Minneapolis), I would here about it from cousins, one still drops names of current bands. I did go back in ’85 and saw a show at what was the Capitol Centre: Chuck Brown, EU, TroubleFunk, Junkyard Band, along with Kurtis Blow, Doug E. Fresh, and Ready For the World. Thanks for finding and posting, reminds me of my hometown!
My pleasure to do so! The music and the city have a very special place in my heart and when I was much younger I had the pleasure to open for a number of these groups when they would travel South to Central Virginia. It was a very cool experience to chat with CJ and he told me how go-go had bought his house for him and how it had taken him all over the world. He also told me a cool story about a band that he met in England back in the day that was playing go-go and that band ending up being The Brand New Heavies. Thanks so much for commenting and checking out the post.