November 30, 2021 4:23 PM
There are so many albums that have come out, have had moderate success, maybe a single on the charts or a radio hit and then have been forgotten. Few today remember Foundation, the 1989 debut album by the Chicago house trio Ten City, yet not only was it successful but, even once forgotten and removed from catalogs and radio playlists, it quietly continued to influence the sound of at least two generations of musicians, DJs and listeners. Foundation he literally founded a genre: what we call very generically vocal house or deep house.
The Ten City (which read quickly sounds like intensity, intensity) are a trio formed by singer Byron Stingily (a giant over one meter and ninety tall with an impressive vocal range), guitarist Herb Lawson and keyboardist Byron Burke. Yes, in a three person band there are two Byrons.
In Ten City there is also a fourth hidden component and it is producer Marshall Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the Chicago house.
1989 is a year of great changes for African American music: it is the year that hip hop explodes in mainstream. Album like 3 Feet high and rising of De La Soul, Raw like sushi by Neneh Cherry (which by the way was a European production), All hail the queen of Queen Latifah e Walking with a panther by LL Cool J are not only hugely successful but overflow from African American radio playlists to reach the ears of white teenagers. It is in 1989 that the inevitable process begins by which hip hop becomes the connective tissue of all pop music, black or white, of the three decades to come. 1989 is a year in which genres begin to mix, hybridize and transform. The young Janet Jackson of Rhythm nation 1814 she is a pop star who sings on the basis of industrial and robotic funk that until a few years before could only be heard on the records of “extreme” rap groups such as Public Enemy and Nwa. In a matter of weeks that metallic, rough and aggressive sound is on MTV. While white pop is increasingly anemic and produces silly boy bands or very short-lived starlets, Janet, Michael Jackson’s little sister, dresses up as a black panther and makes a revolution with a handful of video clips. Beyoncé was still small but she was taking notes.
In that same year, on the margins of the mainstream, Ten City weld Chicago hip hop, rnb and house together and use a gospel sensibility as a glue to hold it all together. It is Byron Stingily’s voice that does the magic: his falsetto is soft and powerful and reminds us at times of Smokey Robinson and at times of Sylvester; it caresses the listener and accompanies him in a process of elevation that reminds us how much dance music has roots in the evangelical churches of the southern United States.
The great divas of disco music, from Donna Summer to Gloria Gaynor, from Candi Staton to Sylvester (perhaps the most diva of all), all come from gospel. They know how to modulate the voice, they know how to make it grow like a tide, they know how to hook it to the groove and make it rise to rapacious heights. Above all, they know how to speak to the body and the spirit at the same time.
Ten City are clear that they come from that culture and build their deep house sound around Byron Stingily’s voice. Their approach to the songs is the most classic of Motown, perfectly crafted love songs that can speak on multiple levels. Listen That’s the way love is e Devotion, the two main hits of Foundation. They look like Temptations or Four Tops songs updated to the era of drum machines and keyboards. The mix between analog and digital, between acoustics and electronics, manages to be warm, fluid, enveloping: Foundation it works just as much in a crowded club as it does at home while it’s raining outside.
After a brief success Ten City were forgotten, yet the sound of Foundation it was a seed from which so much other music sprouted. Vocal house albums such as Blue notes in the basement by Ultra Naté who bravely added a bit of jazz to the mix and Paradise e Praise of the Inner City who tread even more the hand on the gospel. Much of the nineties dance, from Crystal Waters of Gipsy woman (she’s homeless) to Lisa Stansfield he owes a lot to this album. But Ten City’s legacy goes even further: it’s hard to imagine albums like Future nostalgia at Dua Lipa, Róisín machine by Róisín Murphy or a good part of Honey Robyn, without the solid foundations dug many years earlier by Marshall Jefferson and the Ten City.
Ten City reunited this year, after 25 years of inactivity, with a new album titled Judgement.
Ten City
Foundation
Atlantic, 1989
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