WalterGibbons

    1977 was another banner year for Walter. He remixed Anthony White's "Block Party/I Can't Turn You Loose" in a jungled frenzy. He then moved over to the Salsoul subsidiary Gold Mine Records to launch Loleatta Holloway's "Hit & Run" and Love Committee's "Cheater's Never Win."
     1978 found him remixing Loleatta Holloway's "Catch Me On The Rebound" and Love Committee's "Just As Long As I've Got You" for Gold Mine and Cellophane's "Super Queen" and The Robin Hooker Band's "Stand By Your Man" for Salsoul before moving over to Mel Cherren's West End Records to mix Bettye LaVette's "Doin' The Best That I Can" into disco history and H & L Records last hit single of Sandy Mercer's "Play With Me/You Are My Love."
     During this period Gibbons put remixing on hold as he first moved to Philadelphia to spin at The Second Story and then to Seattle to work at George Freeman's Monastery. It seemed he was in search of something in his life that perhaps he felt was missing. 1979 brought his final remixing work with Loleatta Holloway's "I May Not Be There When You Want Me," the two compilation "Disco Boogie" albums and "Disco Madness" both for Salsoul Records.
     While out in Seattle Walter came to terms with God and became a born-again Christian. It is widely noted that during this period he refused to play anything with sexually explicit lyrics and anything that didn't have an upbeat spirtual message. Needless to say, disco was the devil's music and his playlists were rather short and the crowds dwindled to nothing.
     Most people believed that Walter Gibbons was a fading legend in the early history of disco, then in 1984 he resurfaced, and had a new and immediate impact on the development of Chicago House Sound. Gibbons released an independent 12" record called "Set It Off" which started to create a stir at Paradise Garage, the black gay club in New York, where Larry Levan presided over the wheels of steel. Within weeks a "Set It Off" craze spread through the club scene, including new versions by C. Sharp, Masquerade, and answer versions like Import Number 1's "Set It Off (PartyRock)." The original record had been "mixed with love by Walter Gibbons" and was released on the Jus Born label, a tongue in cheek reference to Walter's christianity. Gibbons had set the tone again, the "Set It Off" sound was primitive house, haunting, repetitive beats ideal for mixing and extending. It immediately became an underground club anthem, finding a natural home in Chicago, where a whole generation of DJ's including Farley and Frankie Knuckles, rocked the clubs and regularly played it on local radion stations.
    His final mixes were in 1986 when he joined Arthur Russell for "Let's Go Swimming" and Indian Ocean's "Tree House." Gibbons had returned to New York in the early 1980's and died at his home in Long Island on 9-23-1994. Gibbons outlined his feelings prior to his death in an interview with Steven Harvey. "You really have to think that every time you change the record, the title or something about the record it's going into people's heads," said Gibbons. "For me, I have to let God play the records. I'm just an instrument." Rest in peace Walter and thanks for all the wonderful songs throughout the years.....

Walter Gibbons

Born 4-2-1954 Died 9-23-1994

    Walter Gibbons was a true "Native New Yorker." Born in 1954 in Queens he had a rather uneventful childhood growing up in the big apple. By 18 Walter was plugged into the emerging gay nightlife scene and he became one of disco's earliest d.j.'s.
     In 1972 Walter was the house d.j. for the Galaxy21 club on 23rd Street near the Chelsea Hotel. The club was a cavernous affair created out of two brownstone townhouses merged together. The club was an a potpourri of black, latino, gay, whites and straights, all joined in Walter's tribal percussive symphonies played out with religious fervor.
    Predating the amazing cut and paste skills later developed by hip-hop d.j.'s, Gibbons would take two copies of a record and work the drum breaks so adroitly it was impossible to tell that the music you were hearing wasn't originally recorded that way. Two cuts that he was famous for using in this trick was "Erucu" from the "Mahogany" soundtrack and "Two Pigs & A Hog" from the "Cooley High" soundtrack.
     John "Jellybean" Benitez is quoted as saying; "I thought I was the best d.j. in the world until I heard Walter Gibbons play. Everything he was doing back then, people are doing now. He was phasing records, backbeating them for an echo effect, quick cuts and little tape edits that would freak people out."
     Galaxy's owner George Freeman hired an unknown french drummer to play alongside Walter giving the club an unusual take on live and recorded music. The drummer would set his kit up on the dancefloor and play alongside Walter's tribal beats. This odd beginning was the basis for a long and prestigious career for Francois Kevorkian.
     Walter weaved his magic at Galaxy 21 mainly, but was also heard at the early clubs Fantasia and Buttermilk Bottom. "Walter played in a black clubs and he was as white as can be" remembers Tom Moulton. Moulton who created the 12" single sites Gibbons as the first person to have a commercially released 12" single of his mix.

It was Gibbons transformation of Double Exposure's "Ten Percent" from a three minute album track into an eleven minute dancefloor stormer that radically changed the disco undergound in terms of record production, remixing and development of the 12" record. At the time when orchestration was commonly used on dance records, Gibbons' technique was to concentrate on percussion and the song. He was an explorer and innovator of DJ techniques and skills which we now take for granted. The 12" single was Salsoul's 8th release but was the world's first commercially available 12" single, a nifty title that Walter treasured. The song was so successful that he worked almost exclusively for the Cayre Brothers for the next several years. That same year, 1976, he followed with the Salsoul Orchestra's "Nice 'N' Naasty" another commercial triumph for Walter and Salsoul Records. Magic was cast for both Gibbons and Salsoul Records with the combination of Walter's mixing and Salsoul's distribution, their product kept adding up to chart Gold.