Louise Lopez (February 22, 1933 – January 28, 2015) – Going Back To My Roots (1981)
Odyssey covered an epic Lamont Dozier track and came up with this infectious dancefloor filler with a positive message, a top-five hit in the UK.
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Louise Lopez was one of the original members of Odyssey, a band formed in New York City who found its biggest chart success internationally, particularly in the UK.
In the beginning there were Lillian, Louise and their sister Carmen. Born in Connecticut, they sang in a trio called the Lopez Sisters. Carmen left the group before Odyssey came together.
Their self-titled debut album on RCA was released in 1977 and shot them to fame with the hit disco single “Native New Yorker.” It went to #21 on the pop charts but was a #5 hit in the UK. This established a pattern of Odyssey’s records doing much better overseas than they did at home.
In 1981 they released I Got The Melody, their fourth studio album. The LP was produced by Steve Tyrell, the former head of A&R and promotions at Scepter Records who got his start producing records by artists including Barbara Lynn and the Shirelles in the sixties. He would go on to produce Alice Cooper’s “I Am The Future” (1982), the theme song to Class Of 1984, the cult film directed by Mark L. Lester.
I Got The Melody was recorded at RCA Studios and Media Sound in New York City. The recording team included engineer and remixer Michael Barbiero, known for his work alongside John Luongo on mixes of disco classics including “This Time Baby” by Jackie Moore and Dan Hartman's “Vertigo/Relight My Fire.”
The album’s lead single was “Going Back to My Roots,” an infectious dancefloor filler with a positive message about reconnecting with one’s true identity. It was a cover of an epic song written by Lamont Dozier that appeared on his 1977 LP Peddlin' Music on the Side. The original stretched for nearly ten minutes and was a favorite at The Loft and the Paradise Garage.
The full album mix of their version retained the original’s length, but with new intro and outro sections credited to songwriter and session guitarist Al Gorgoni, who also arranged the entire track and co-produced the LP. It was titled “Roots Suite: Ajomora, Going Back To My Roots, Bawa Awa.”
The 12” version of “Going Back to My Roots” omitted the intro and outro. It only reached #68 on the U.S. R&B charts, and #55 on the dance charts, but was a #4 pop hit for them in the UK. The song spent six weeks in the UK top ten, and was also a top-five hit in much of Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland. In South Africa, it went to #1.
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