James Hamilton’s Disco Pages 1975-82

DJ and journalist James Hamilton was a force to be reckoned with, a 6’8″ giant of the British music press. His review columns for Record Mirror stitched together the community that became the UK dance industry. On his death in 1996, Eddie Gordon, head of A&R at Manifesto, underlined Hamilton’s importance: ‘He started a kind of national awareness among DJs. Via James’s columns people were able to find a link and find out what other DJs were playing.’ Paying similar tribute, Pete Tong praised the authority of his reviews. ‘He was drawing on such a wealth of knowledge that even if you didn’t agree with what he said, you had to respect his opinion.’ DMC founder Tony Prince simply reckoned, ‘The music business owes him a standing ovation.’

James Hamilton’s Disco Pages 1975-82, published by Greg Wilson’s SWS imprint, gathers seven years of Hamilton’s columns in a single volume. This labour of love was put together by Mike Atkinson, building on the amazing online resource jameshamiltonsdiscopage.com. Mike notes how the columns – along with Hamilton’s forceful personality – helped form the tastes of a generation of DJs, and actually drove the development of the craft in the UK. ‘He had a vision of how he wanted dance culture to be, and he willed that into being.’

Hamilton was a posh and imposing figure, a pedant and perfectionist. His DJ career began with a residency at the Kray Twins’ Knightsbridge club, Esmerelda’s Barn, and throughout his career his upper-class connections meant gigs playing debutante balls in country houses. In the mid-’60s he was in the States working for Seltaeb, promoting Beatles’ merchandise, but also indulging his love of soul and meeting stars including Sam Cook, Diana Ross and James Brown, whose first UK visit he helped arrange. On his return, as ‘Doctor Soul’ he was resident at famed mod spot The Scene, released a soul compilation on Guy Steven’s label Sue, started contributing expert black music reviews to Record Mirror, and set up as an early mobile DJ. But it was for his later 1979-84 residency at Gullivers, London’s premier funk and soul club, that his DJing is best remembered.

His greatest contribution was to popularise mixing among British DJs, a technique which was de rigeur in most American clubs by the mid ’70s, but which didn’t catch on in the UK until the rise of house. The well-financed Embassy club had brought American mixing DJ Greg James over in 1978, and he taught several Brits to mix, including northern soul star Ian Levine, who was evolving his sets towards disco. But with few exceptions, well into the ’80s, most British club DJs aspired to the slick patter of a radio jock, and talking between records was seen as an essential part of the job.

So, as a forceful evangelist of the wonders of mixing, it was James Hamilton who drove its development in the UK more than anyone. Already aware of the possibilities of beatmatching, his passion for ‘New York style mixing,’ was ignited after seeing Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage. Soon afterwards, in 1979, determined to bring UK DJs more in line with their US cousins, he organised a field trip to New York for UK jocks to experience the Garage and meet Levan. One pilgrim, DJ Froggy of the ‘Soul Mafia’ collective, declared himself a convert, and armed with the first Technics 1200s in the country, became a poster boy for the new style.

At the start of the same year Hamilton also began noting the tempo of all the tracks he reviewed, explaining the value of this in a piece titled ‘To BPM or not to BPM’. And while mixing remained contentious, with Neil Rushton documenting both sides of the argument in ‘Does the Talking Have to Stop?’ in Disco magazine, it was Hamilton’s dogged BPMing of records that inspired thousands of British DJs to give it a try. He offered mixing tips and even suggested mixable record combinations in his ‘Mixmaster’ playlists. And while Pete Waterman beat him by two weeks to be the first to publish BPMs, his were far more accurate. He was so scrupulous with his stopwatch he’d even note fluctuations in a record that might upset a mix, (certain jazz-funk tracks clocked up a dozen different BPMs).

It was because he wrote explicitly for DJs, reviewing records with a DJ’s understanding, and used his distinctive ‘squiggly, diddly, boppy writing style,’ (as Mixmag’s David Davies described it) to bring the music to life, that James Hamilton had so much influence. As dance music evolved, he was fiercely progressive, taking the right side of history as black music became more electronic, and introducing numerous new charts as the music he loved split into distinct genres, such as ‘Futurist’ reflecting the rise of synthpop, or ‘Boystown,’ charting the tastes of the UK’s gay clubs.

All this makes James Hamilton’s Disco Pages 1975-82 an essential chronicle of the British disco scene, filled with charts and reviews and nuggets of history with a similar richness of detail as Vince Aletti’s Disco Files. It’s taken five years to put together, with the reviews organised monthly, multiple indexes and a playlist for every month. Not to mention forewords by Norman Cook, and Greg Wilson, whose research has done so much to highlight Hamilton’s importance. There’ll be a second volume in a year’s time covering 1983-89.

 © Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton

Remembering James Hamilton – by Les Adams

Les Adams was a club DJ and DMC in-house remixer – and one half of dance hitmakers LA Mix – who helped James Hamilton splice together his renowned end-of-year megamixes on London’s Capital Radio every New Year through the ’80s. Les shared memories of his great friend on the DjHistory forum.

James was my best and dearest friend for many years and was best man at my first wedding. We produced the Capital Radio New Years Eve mix tapes together and were constant companions as judges on the DMC World Mixing Championships.

James’s role in promoting the use of BPM was invaluable and without him many DJs would have remained fumbling in the dark. A lot of people back then considered it cheating – but that’s like saying a motor mechanic doesn’t need to organise his tools in some sort of order and can have them all mixed up in a box. The best mechanic knows exactly where the 10mm spanner is so he doesn’t have to fumble around looking for it.

I used to teach mixing skills at The Academy of Contemporary Music. BPM was always the first lesson and those who bothered with it were the ones who got the best results. BPM is about being organized. Some rhythms can be deceptive and give the illusion of being faster or slower than they actually are, so the BPM is the only way to get an accurate measure of pace. BPM also suggests tunes that may mix together that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. For example, ‘Sweet Child of mine’ by Guns ‘n Roses is about 126bpm, the same as Dennis Ferrer’s ‘Hey Hey’. If I hadn’t calculated the BPM I would never have guessed the tempo is the same. Experimenting in this way could often lead to some very interesting possibilities, and it’s how James and I constructed the Capital Radio mixes, where we would mix everything from Kylie and Pet Shop Boys to Elvis Presley and the Clash, all seamlessly. We used the BPM to suggest tunes that just might mix together, all we had to do was try it and see.

Les Adams

The best mixes are those that follow the musical structure or use it correctly to make things happen at the right time. A good mix is when a bassline, vocal or break is timed to perfection. None of this happens by accident, it requires an understanding of the beat and bar structure of every tune, or it will go wrong. Excessive use of the varispeed is one of my pet hates. Or not following the 4/4 bar structure, mixing vocals over vocals and key clashes. Sometimes DJs forget that music has rules, just as a language has punctuation, sentences and paragraphs.

James’s home was a record library, every room was absolutely covered floor to ceiling with records in racks, shelving and crates. To make extra space for the records, he ripped out his kitchen appliances and cooked on a small stove in between racks of vinyl. His bedroom and half his bed were also covered in records. There was a record deck and a typewriter at the side of his bed where he used to write his reviews. He had a huge 13×2-inch letterbox cut in the front door so records would fit through it.

He was a keen photographer and had thousands of photos he took at music events. I don’t know what happened to them, but they alone could be made into a historical account of soul music and venues.

When James and I made the Capital FM house party mixes, he used to load his car up with countless boxes of records, both 7- and 12-inch, and arrive at the studio with every bit of space in his Nissan ZX crammed with vinyl.

Every sleeve was covered with his wonderful reviews and comments all over them. I’d tease him that writing all over the sleeves was going to devalue the records, but I wasn’t taking into account the value of his writing. He never intended to sell them in any case – what mattered to him was the music in the grooves. He said he needed a reminder of each record: ‘I’m buggered if I can remember what everything sounds like!’ So his reviews were as useful to him as they were to other DJs.

The New Year mixes were produced for Capital FM in London, although the last one we did together was for BBC Radio One. I did all the mixing with James making the track selections. He had great ears and a good understanding of which tracks would work together, especially when mixing cross genre.

We used his records as they were all mint and mine were well played in clubs. He passed me the tracks and I mixed them on two Technics SL1200s with Ortofon OM Pro styli, The mixer was a GLI 3990 and we recorded and edited on a Revox PR99 2 track open reel. We then dubbed to DAT for broadcast because the master tapes had hundreds of splices and we were worried one of them might come apart during playback! We used countless reels of Ampex 456 tape and ate a lot of food!

James was always late for everything. Even at his funeral, at his request, he arrived late. If you wanted him to be somewhere at 9pm, you’d tell him to be there at 5! I recall one occasion when he was due to be at my studio to work on a Capital mix at 3pm on a Friday… he eventually arrived at 9pm Sunday and proclaimed, ‘Sorry I’m Late! It’s too late to start working now and I’m hungry, let’s go and have dinner!’ The only thing he was ever on time for was his Record Mirror deadlines!

My most surreal memory of James was sitting with him and Flava Flav of Public Enemy after a DMC convention listening to them discuss doo-wop music! Two more different looking people you could not imagine, yet totally on the same musical wavelength with mutual and total respect for each other. At the end of the conversation, James peered at the huge clock the rapper used to wear on a chain round his neck and said, ‘So that’s how you know what time it is!’

James was a very honest, loyal and dedicated man who loved life, music, food, the countryside, and his wife Sally, who he married when they both knew he was dying of cancer. Sadly, she passed away shortly after him, I suspect of a broken heart.

He was forthright and often brutally honest in his views and could be infuriating at times, but nobody could wish for a better friend. Never one to give false praise, he was always the first person I went to for an opinion on my music, or anything else for that matter, knowing I would get an honest answer.

James was hugely admired by his colleagues and by most people in the music industry – except maybe those who got a less than favourable review in his column – but then they didn’t know the man behind the words. As much as he could be scathing in his remarks, he would also rave about a record he liked and most DJs and music fans would buy a record without hearing it, based only on his trusted word.

He was a big man in every way, stature and personality. I still miss being able to pick up the phone and chat to him about music, food or any other topic. He lived life to the full.

I loved him dearly and miss him to this day. If there is a funk heaven, my wish is to end up on the same cloud so we can once again sit and chat about music… and eat good food!

RIP my dear friend. Professionally and personally, nobody could ever replace you.

– Les Adams.