TeeScott

TEE SCOTT (Marc Allen Scott)
Born: 9-17-1948 Died: 12-12-1995
.....from cancer at 47.

    Tee was born September 17, 1948 in the Bronx. Christened Marc Allen Scott, he was the second of 5 children born to Ernest and Dorothea Scott. He was raised, first in the South Bronx, then in the Northeast Bronx. Tee went to George Westinghouse high school, (a leap of faith by his parents, sending him alone to Brooklyn everyday). Over thirty years later he returned to school as a college student. An Associate in Science - Electronics degree was conferred upon him posthumously in 1996 by TCI in Manhattan.
    Scott's career actually began long before the disco movement. He first started experimenting with records and primitive D.J-.ing in 1969 at the age of 21. Back then it was basement stuff mainly geared towards the kids in the neighborhood, but even then people knew he had an ear for music. Tee was a HUGE Supremes fan. He liked the divas, but then again, he liked everything. That’s part of what made his music special, unique. Tee was unafraid to mix in Bach with Sylvester. The crowd loved it! You never knew when he was going to throw in some Nina Simone, a Gregorian chant, or the witch’s laugh track from the Wizard of Oz.
     His professional career began in 1972 with his exposure to "mixed" music at "The Candy Store." Tee Scott was at "The Candy Store" from May of '72 until July of '72. A customer who liked Tee's music so much told Tee that he should contact "Better Days." Bert, the lesbian deejay who was at "Better Days," (before her they played a juke box), did a real no-no with the boss' wife. The boss' wife had asked her to play a request, and Bert told her, "No, I don't play requests." So naturally there was an opening.
     Tee Scott commented on his first nights at "Better Days": "I went into the deejay booth, and it was real, real, crude. I had to climb up onto this thing; it was unbelievable. There was no such thing as a pre-cue. What they had was a Sony amplifier with a Phono 1 and Phono 2 button, and that's how you switched fram turntable to turntable. No fading, nothing. It was a large dancefloor; the lights were very basic at the time. They had this automatic light panel, and lights over the whole ceiling. You could change it to, like, 6 or 8 different patterns: a red ring, a blue ring, and a green ring, like a bullseye. And there was a big board on the wall inside the deejay booth, but it wasn't working when I first started working there. I had to cajole the manager and owner into getting somebody in the there to fix that board. It just lit up, but it wouldn't go through any of the patterns or anything. Talk about primitive. They had a jukebox on in the day, since they opened at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and I would come on at 9 or 10 o'clock at night. I would play from 10 'til about 4; the bars at that time closed at about 4 o'clock. I thought that I'd gotten the job, but when I came in the next day to play, he said, Nobody told you you were hired! So I struggled through that night with no headphones or anything, and then I went home and designed, and brought in this little amplifier and headphone thing and plugged it in so I could have a pre-cue. And then I started on the light system, and the boss was so cheap he didn't want to put it in, and I would go and buy the materials with my own money and put it up myself, and eventually he would pay me and do it the right way. You know, the electrical sockets and all that. I was running these with extension chords - I would go buy hundreds and hundreds of feet and put it up on this very high ceiling, and run the wires into the deejay booth, so I could have a flash of light, and a red circuit and blue circuit that would light up the whole room. He didn't want to spend money for boomers or tweeters, so I went out and made two clusters of tweeters, and ran the wires myself to make the sound better, and eventually I wound up getting Alex Rosner to do it. He was one of the main competitors of Richard Long, although not quite as good. Rosner put in the very first disco sound system; that was at "The Gallery," with Nicky Siano, back in '74 or '75. So meanwhile, "The Gallery" was opening, "The Loft" became popular - that was with David Mancuso - and these were after hours clubs that didn't open until 12 o'clock and didn't close unitil 7 or 8 in the morning. They had these fabulous sound systems, I had this rinky-dink sound system, and it was a constant tug of war with customers. When people started going to the underground clubs, "Better Days" was a bar-club, and these other clubs were open all night. I had to compete with them, and I had to diligently start improving my sound system and my music: I made it so that when you came into "Better Days," you started dancing from the time you got in there, and you did not stop until you got out of there. And not only that, but Better Days was known as a gay, black, mililtant club. It was rough - street rough. Or that was the way people looked at it. And there no such thing as a white person, or an Oriental person, or a Spanish person coming down to Better Days. It was known to be black. I endeavored to change that. I started inviting all kinds of people down there and eventually it worked."
     Tee goes back to the old school days and literally grew up in the D.J. world with friends Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles. While Tee was starting out at "Better Days," Larry was opening in "The Continental Baths" and Frankie was trying to get started. "I kind of knew Frankie through various channels, but we became friends during this club boom, and Frankie was trying to play at "The Continental Baths." So one night I saw him sitting there with his head in his hands, and I said, I'm overworked with 7 nights a week over at "Better Days," so why don't you have 2 of my nights there? I gave him Monday and Tuesday; he worked there for a year or so, and then he got an offer from Chicago, and I gave the job to somebody else. So I was the one who gave Frankie his first job, and if you ask him, he'll tell you." Their friendship remained intact until Tee's passing.

Tee Scott also played other clubs like "Clubhouse" in D.C and "L'Uomo" in Detroit. This all occurred from 1975 through the 1980's.
In 1979 Tee did his first remix. He took the short album track of "Love Thang" by First Choice and mixed it into an eight-minute dance floor classic. Thus began his glorious remixing period. His own guesstimates were that he added his genius to more than 140 tracks. This too led to production with tracks like "Tee's Right" and "Tee's Happy" in the early 1980's.

    His spinning career continued with stints at "The Cheetah Club" in New Jersey and later at "The Empire Skating Rink." While at "The Empire" Tee became sick and many thought he had A.I.D.S. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and during his treatments he retired from D.J.-ing to focus on his health and educating himself on the latest on the electronics side of the business. Conquering the cancer he chose to reignite his career and launched tours of Japan, Canada and Mexico in 1994 delighting international fans with his dazzling remixes.
     Sadly he succumbed to the cancer in 1995. A true pioneer of the disco movement Tee's passing affected many most notably Frankie Knuckles who had already experienced the loss of another friend Larry Levan.
     One can only imagine what delights we would be enjoying today if Tee had lived longer..........