8 labels that shaped the New York City house sound

Salsoul Records

If there was one thing you’d not find on a dance floor in ‘80s New York it was the genre hang-up. What we now remember as being the birth of house music in the city was at the time a no holds barred riot of genres competing for the dance floor as increasingly percussive disco mixes morphed seamlessly into so-called house music as imported from Chicago and elsewhere. While West End, Prelude and Casablanca were all local disco labels that could hold their own with Salsoul as progenitors of this sweaty electronic mélange, the hyperactive productivity of the Cayre brothers’ label sets it apart, with many of their most seminal 12”s jostling with the likes of Kevin Aviance & Junior Vasquez on the voguing scene before being revisited in the early ‘90s following samples from Black Box and Marky Mark. Not to mention the fact that Salsoul released the first commercially available 12” single and may have done more for house music in the process than anyone else.

---

Loleatta Holloway
Hit & Run
(Gold Mind, 1977)

Listen / Buy

Seminal Loleatta Holloway cut and another heavy Walter Gibbons mix released on Salsoul sub-label Gold Mind. Definitive stuff and one of the most heavily sampled Salsoul grooves.

---

Inner Life
Moment Of My Life
(1982)

Listen / Buy

Another in-house Salsoul project, Inner Life called on Greg Charmichael to offer his hand on production. Another 12” that stretched out towards the incoming righteous and melodic house sound.

---

First Choice
Let No Man Put Asunder
(1983)

Listen / Buy

This and ‘Love Thang’ put First Choice’s stamp on Salsoul in a way that would elevate the label no end. ‘Let No Man Put Asunder’ was a huge hit in its own right, but remixes first from Walter Gibbons and then Shep Pettibon and Frankie Knuckles rooted it in house lore.

---

The Salsoul Orchestra
Ooh I Love it (Love Break)
(1983)

Listen / Buy

Again with Shep Pettibon on mix duty, this extended cut from the in-house backing band was one of several smooth, elongated disco 12”s that pushed towards 120bpm, before finding itself subsumed (read: sampled) by Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ in 1990.

---

Black Box
Ride On Time
(Groove Groove Melody, 1989)

Listen / Buy

OK, so this one wasn’t released on Salsoul, but its release had a bigger posthumous impact on the label than the Cayre brothers could have imagined. Sampling Loleatta Holloway’s vocals from ‘Love Sensation’ (also heard on ‘Good Vibrations’ by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch), Black Box boosted interest in the original no end and ensured that Salsoul had a voice on the ‘90s dance floor too.

---