Ron "Have Mercy" Kersey (April 7, 1949 – January 25, 2005) – At The Top Of The Stairs (1976)
The very first 12" released on T.K. Disco was this epic jam by Wild Honey, produced, arranged by, and featuring Kersey on keyboards, co-written by Leon Huff.
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Ron “Have Mercy” Kersey was an amazingly talented musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer who was a member of MFSB, the Salsoul Orchestra and the Trammps. Most well-known for co-writing the Trammps' biggest hit “Disco Inferno,” he helped create numerous other Philly soul classics.
For an overview of Kersey's life and career, see our post from January on “Magic Of The Blue,” which he co-wrote for Blue Magic with Allan Felder and Norman Harris.
Besides his talents as a keyboardist, producer and songwriter, Kersey was a master arranger who handled the arrangements on many 70s soul and disco records.
He arranged and co-wrote the great disco-soul jam “Don't Take Your Love” (1974) for the Whispers' fourth studio LP Bingo, produced by Baker-Harris-Young, later covered by the Manhattans. It was the last Whispers album on Janus Records before they switched to Don Cornelius' label Soul Train Records that eventually became SOLAR. His co-writers on the track were Allan Felder and Bunny Sigler.
He arranged two songs on Double Exposure's debut LP on Salsoul, Ten Percent, released in 1976 - “Baby I Need Your Loving” and the epic jam “My Love Is Free,” which was co-written by Felder and T.G. Conway.
For Solar Flare, he arranged their unsung disco classic “Boogie Fund” (1978), which was produced by Felder and Conway and co-written by the two of them plus Leroy Green.
And for the first-ever 12” release on T.K. Disco, he produced and arranged Wild Honey's epic disco jam “At The Top Of The Stairs” (1976), co-written by Leon Huff.
Wild Honey
It is ironic that T.K. Disco, the label which brought Miami flavor to the disco era, chose a Philly production for its debut release. But in 1976, Philadelphia was producing most of the hottest disco around.
“At The Top Of The Stairs” was recorded at Sigma Sound Studios and Kersey played his trademark hypnotically funky, high-energy keyboards. The track stretched to over nine minutes between its Parts 1 & 2, and after the first few minutes of vocals, starting at 3:21 a superb extended instrumental break kicked in that elevated it to a disco masterpiece and must have kept many a dancefloor jamming back in the day. When the strings appeared at 4:44, the track really began to cook.
#disco #soul #funk #MFSB #Trammps #WildHoney #RonKersey
“At the Top of the Stairs” is a masterpiece. Thanks for including this!