16th Dec2013
by Steve Williams
The long sought after 12″ version of the title track has become something of a cult disco item and reached the lower reaches of the top twenty soul chart in 1978, but that should not detract from the fact that singer D.J. Rogers is an extremely talented and soulful performer who, after struggling with RCA over a few album releases, moved to Columbia where his sound met with a far more sympathetic response. Here is the result from 1978 at a time when soul music was marginalised. Top studio musicians were employed including Michael Wycoff, Patrice Rushen and Jerry Peters sharing keyboard duties, Kenny Burke on bass and Paulinho da Costa on percussion. If the title track is unquestionably the strongest number (the extra long 8.44 12″ version is included as a bonus here) and a fine showcase for the album becoming a top twenty soul hit in 1978, then ‘When love has gone’ is only marginally less enticing and is regarded as a follow up to the RCA recorded ‘Say you love me’ which was a minor hit at the time. A second single released off the album, ‘All my love’ has echoes of Stevie Wonder while the song ‘Changed’ has something of a gospel feel to it complete with handclaps. An exhaustive nine page biography by A. Scott Galloway provides an insight into how D.J.s career ebbed and flowed. Another case of an immense talent that was badly served by the record industry at the time and should have enjoyed a lengthy spell of success during the 1980s. Tim Stenhouse
Source:
http://ukvibe.org/sans_frontier/d-j-rogers/