'Voodoo Ray'...these two words make househeads all over the world go: 'Hell yeah!'. A true dance music anthem, a song that summed up an era, defined the movement and inspired generations of artists. It's like the year zero in the evolution of electronic music. A tune that forged the sound of the 90s and heralded a beginning of a new phenomenon that was to transform British society - one word, four letters: rave!...But hold your horses, let's start from the beginning...
...In the 1980s, the only place in the UK where you could hear this weird, imported, American music called 'house' was Manchester's now legendary club, called the Haçienda. Opened in 1982 by Tony Wilson of Factory Records (the label that brought us Joy Division, Happy Mondays and New Order, among others), the club enjoyed its best years in the late 80s, when DJs Mike Pickering and Jon Da Silva opened up their ibiza-inspired night called 'Hots'.
It was on one of these nights when Gerald Simpson, a 20 year-old club regular from Moss Side, walked up to the DJ booth and handed Pickering a demo of a tune he'd been working on. Not even 10 minutes later Simpson, while dancing on the floor, thinks he might have heard the intro to his song. He thinks to himself: 'Nah, it couldn't be!'. Strangely enough, it turns out it was his song and it also turns out that everybody in the club is loving his tune. The DJs played the song two more times throughout the night, and with every single play, the crowd went even more mental about it. The ecstatic Simpson runs up to the DJ booth thanking the DJ for playing it.
Bam! The song gets released and Gerald Simpson becomes A Guy Called Gerald! History was made!
So...what's so special about this song then? Well...it was pioneering in the sense that it introduced a new aesthetic to the sound and paved the way for stuff like jungle, drum and bass and hardcore. Sure, the acid house sound with the iconic Roland TB-303 (a bass synthesiser for guitarists which got abused by acid house producers to make that famous, distinctive sound) was already out there, sure it was still 'four-to-the-floor', sure it had a beat made with a simple sequencer, sure it was just a couple of samples....but still, it somehow managed to spark a new movement that changed Britains racial, social and even legal context!
How come, you ask? Well....just check it out and maybe you'll find out for yourself if there's anything more to this tune than just a catchy story!
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