Jheri Curl June: Midnight Star’s “No Parking on the Dance Floor”
Today’s Jheri Curl June entry is the title track from Midnight Star’s 1983 album No Parking on the Dance Floor. It has all the necessary ingredients of a classic jheri-curl track: a squealing synth line, bass that pops like crazy, and a camp-as-hell introduction that threatens, “if you don’t get a move on that body,…
Jheri Curl June: Jesse Johnson’s “Be Your Man”
Jesse Johnson’s birthday was Sunday, so this is a little bit of a belated birthday tribute. “Be Your Man,” from Jesse Johnson’s 1985 debut solo album Jesse Johnson’s Revue, is quintessential Minneapolis jheri curl funk: the pounding drum machine beat, heavy bassline, glossy synth “horns” (which he calls out in a James Brown-esque band leader style),…
Introduction to Jheri Curl June
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new form of predominantly African American popular music began to take shape. Rooted in soul and funk music, but largely stripped of those genres’ grit; with elements of rock and disco, and at least one eye forever resting on potential radio play; the loosely-defined style has gone…