Fassie vs Orlando

Tony Orlando's brilliant 'Don't Let Go' got the re-edit treatment by Peter Herbert on Disco Deviance some months ago. There was some grumbling about the track getting clipped and it not being necessary, but in the end I personally think Pete did a very nice job of it. The definitive re-working of the track (again a personal feeling), is however, far more deviant and sacrilegious, a true spark of genius infact which involves Norman Jay welding local legend Brenda Fassie's vocals onto the aforementioned Orlando track.

Sometime in 2003 Virgin released a long time project of Ben Turner's which was a collection of remixes of Brenda tracks by Gerd, A Man Called Adam, Ashley Beedle, 4 Hero, Bent, Howie B, Dubtribe and others. I guess it does raise the question of how right did the remixers get it? Brenda was such a unique mixture of pure township Pop, Disco, Gospel and any number of other SA genre's. Her attitude alone would have made her famous, but her music is so catchy, so quirky and so Brenda that any remixes by foreigners might seem an odd choice. That said the cd works well for the most part, in a 'designed for western listening' way, with the highlight being Gerd's take on 'Msindo'. Norman Jay's work on the brilliant 'Mingi Mingi' amounts to little more than a mash of Brenda's vocals on top of an edit of Orlando's 'Don't Let Go', but it works a treat! Spring Fever in Johannesburg sounds like this.... On a personal note: i count myself lucky to have been asked to do the artwork for the release (it turned out rather well - that's not it up there)

Brenda Fassie - Mingi Mingi (Norman Jay Remix)