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Fred McFarlane, Leroy Burgess, Russell Patterson, Sonny Davenpo… Read Full Bio ↴Logg

Fred McFarlane, Leroy Burgess, Russell Patterson, Sonny Davenport, Stan Lucas

LOGG/SALSOUL

After the release and success of "LET'S DO IT" by Conversion on SAM records, Greg Carmichael and myself decided we wanted to do more songs on that project. The principle members of Conversion were myself (lead and background vocals, keyboards) my adopted brother James Calloway (bass) and my cousin Sonny T. Davenport (drums). We added my sister Renee J. J . Burgess and Dorothy Terrell on background vocals, Sonny DeGraffenreid (guitar), Fred McFarlane (keyboards), my cousin Willis Long (percussion) and Trevor Gale (live drums).

Sam Weiss owned the copyright of the Conversion name, so when negotiations for continuing the project broke down, Greg and I decided to take the group to another label…Salsoul Records. The first song recorded was "I KNOW YOU WILL", in a mind numbing nine hour midnight session at Soundworks Studios. Salsoul was most impressed and decided to call in the great Larry Levan to mix. But we needed a new name. As we were busy with other projects, we asked Greg to make up something and get back to us. He decided on Logg (why I doubt I'll ever understand). Two weeks later, the single burst onto the radio stations and into the stores.

Ken Cayre, President of Salsoul was so impressed, he immediately commissioned six more songs to comprise an album. James, Sonny and I sequestered ourselves between my apartment and Sonny's (on 11th and 21st floors of 200 Drew/Hamilton respectively) to compose the songs. An exhaustive week later the songs were completed.

"YOU'VE GOT THAT SOMETHING" is my favourite. Most noteworthy during the recording of this was the percussion session. I called in everybody in the group (whether or not they could play percussion) and gave them an instrument and a specific part. Beer bottles, shakers, cabasa, a box of oatmeal, a box of salt…you name it. We lined up in tow rows…set up seven mics and started playing. The resultant breakdown section is perhaps the most percussive work I've ever done on a song.

"DANCING INTO THE STARS" actually began life as an intro or interlude created by James for our live performance. During one of our 'writer's block' periods composing the album, Sonny suggested "Why don't we do something with that piece Jimmy wrote for the shows?" The result was this song. Noticeably Conversion-esque, we used some elements of "LET'S DO IT" to complete the vibe. See if you can figure out which ones. Most noteworthy is James' bass work. I think he busted his thumb on this one and we had to halt production while it healed. Check out the intensity for yourselves.