Insatnt Funk were commonly used as backing band for mastodonts like Lou Rawls, Loleatta Holloway, The O’Jays, MFSB, Curtis Mayfield and Evelyn “Champagne” King (they are the backing band on the hit single, “Shame”). But they created a everlasting classic with “I Got My Mind Made Up”. Hailing from Trenton, New Jersey, Instant Funk are recognized as masters of the Disco sound by purists and creators alike.
Originally it was 8 tracks and was a simple R&B song. It was then transferred to 24 track tape at Blank Tapes, NYC and producer Bunny Sigler and engineer Bob Blank began work on it. Remixing was attempted by Walter Gibbons, Ken Cayre (the owner of Salsoul Records) and Larry Levan. They were done in Blank Tapes‘s old studio A, on a console that was not automated. So the remixes were done with splicing tape, playing a small section of the music and then resetting the console, before recording the next piece.
4 bars make out the groove section and were edited in over and over to create the format of the song as it exists today.
This edit excels by Da Lukas adding a solid padding for the classic, joyfully updating the audio exoskeleton of the track, and keeping the soul and core of it. One of the reasons this Salsoul classic can sound so crisp and clear is that it’s one of the multi-track master tapes John Morales saved from destruction in the moronic move Salsoul made by destroying original masters they had stored at Blank Tapes. The mind boggles.
