With a quartet of recent releases, Big Break Records continues to deliver to the highest standard in deluxe, remastered and generously expanded editions of R&B classics.  Today, we turn the spotlight on two of those titles, from Stacy Lattisaw and Karen Young!

Stacy Lattisaw was just 12 - yes, 12! - years old when she made her major label debut on Atlantic Records' Cotillion imprint with Young and in Love.  One of the final projects produced by Van McCoy before his untimely death, the album featured revivals of Ruby and the Romantics' title track as well as "Downtown" and "Dedicated to the One I Love."  It revealed a precociously gifted singer with the purest of tones, yet didn't register on the charts in the way Atlantic had hoped.  But it had impressed Narada Michael Walden, and the up-and-coming hitmaker requested that Cotillion give him a chance to produce Lattisaw.  The result was 1980's Let Me Be Your Angel, newly reissued by BBR.

Walden surrounded the young  singer with musicians including T.M. Stevens on bass, Frank Martin on piano, Corrado Rustici on guitar and George Hearst on drums, bringing in Jerry Hey and the Seawind Horns to add an extra punch to the tracks.  The tight group's versatile musicianship lent an organic feel to the tracks recorded in a soulful, contemporary dance vein.  Tailoring the songs to Lattisaw's maturing talents and taking a cue from the young Michael Jackson in not giving Lattisaw child-oriented material, Walden wrote or co-wrote every one of the eight cuts on Let Me Be Your Angel.   Adding to the rich textures on the LP, CHIC's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards contributed guitar and bass, respectively, to the pretty, mid-tempo "Dreaming."  Future American Idol judge Randy Jackson handled bass on "You Know I Like It" and the piano-driven, Laura Nyro-inspired "My Love," and orchestrator Michael Gibbs was brought in to gild the ballad "Let Me Be Your Angel" with strings recalling the lush grandeur of Teddy Randazzo or Burt Bacharach's arrangements from a decade earlier.

Let Be Me Your Angel was rewarded with a Top 10 placement on the Billboard R&B chart.  The single "Dynamite!" topped the Disco countdown and went Top 10 R&B. with "Let Me Be Your Angel" also going Top 10 R&B as well as impressively reaching No. 21 Pop/No. 34 AC.  In the U.K., the infectious "Jump to the Beat" made it all the way to No. 3 Pop.  Walden and Lattisaw went on to collaborate on another four albums together even as Walden crafted hits for Phyllis Hyman, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin and so many others.  BBR's reissue (attractively housed in a Super Jewel Box) has been remastered by Nick Robbins and features splendid new liner notes by Christian John Wikane, drawing on an interview with Walden, as well as an introductory note by Stacy Lattisaw.  Two bonus single versions, of "Jump to the Beat" and "Dynamite!," have been appended.

Big Break has also turned its attention to another female vocalist: Karen Young (1951-1991).  The late singer recorded just one studio album in her lifetime, yet Hot Shot - with its six tracks of hard-driving disco - has endured.  The Philadelphia-born singer recorded Hot Shot in the City of Brotherly Love with producer-arrangers Andy Kahn and Kurt Borusiewicz.  Kahn had founded Queen Village Studios in 1970 as an alternative to the mecca that was Sigma Sound Studios, and Young became a regular there recording jingles even as the studio's reputation grew.  As fully detailed in Christian John Wikane's copious liner notes, the title track of Hot Shot began life as a song called "Stop Sign" for a group called Calhoon.  When Calhoon's recording career got derailed, co-writers Kahn and Borusiewicz reshaped the track into "Hot Shot," designed for the disco market and retaining just a couple of elements (including Sigma great Don Renaldo's strings) from the original recording.

West End Records was taken with the potential of "Hot Shot" as a disco floor-filler, and soon Karen Young and her co-producers had an album deal, as well.  The resulting Hot Shot album offered deliciously camp pleasures (the double entendre-laden "Bring on the Boys") as well as more sober songs (Young's own, bluesy and funky "God Knows I'm Just a Woman," co-written with Helen Russell) and genre-blurring  excursions (the disco-jazz fusion of "Baby You Ain't Nothin' Without Me" and "Where is He").  Young showed off her skills as not just a disco diva with a commanding vocal instrument, but a pianist, a songwriter and a versatile scat-singer.

West End's belief in "Hot Shot" paid off when the single topped the Disco chart in 1978; it also crossed over to Pop and R&B. Unfortunately, tensions soon arose between the co-producers, the artist and the label.   Young continued to record, albeit without Kahn and Borusiewicz, but never matched the success of "Hot Shot."  A brief rapprochement occurred in 1990 when Kahn invited Young to perform at a Philadelphia benefit for Action AIDS in memory of his partner Bruce's mother.  Young reprised "Hot Shot" to the sold-out crowd and tensions thawed.  But, tragically, the celebratory evening turned out to be Young's final performance.  She passed away in 1991, not yet 40 years old.  Kurt Borusiewicz lost his valiant battle with AIDS three years later.

The music on Hot Shot keeps the memories of Karen Young and Kurt Borusiewicz alive.  BBR has expanded its reissue with six bonus tracks: Jim Burgess' 12-inch remixes of "Hot Shot," "Bring on the Boys" and "Baby You Ain't Nothing Without Me," plus previously unreleased extended versions of "Where is He" and "Bring on the Boys" and the long single version of "Hot Shot."  Christian John Wikane provides the illuminating essay based on a new interview with Andy Kahn, and Arjan Rietvink has remastered.

Both Let Me Be Your Angel and Hot Shot are available now at the links below; watch this space for Part Two featuring a look at BBR's latest Ashford and Simpson reissues!

Stacy Lattisaw, Let Me Be Your Angel (Cotillion SD-5219, 1980 - reissued Big Break WCDBBRX0317, 2015) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Jump to the Beat
2. Dynamite!
3. You Don't Love Me Anymore
4. Dreaming
5. Let Me Be Your Angel
6. Don't You Want to Feel It (For Yourself)
7. You Know I Like It
8. My Love
9. Jump to the Beat (Single Version) (Cotillion single 46001, 1980)
10. Dynamite! (Single Version) (Cotillion single 45015, 1980)

Karen Young, Hot Shot (West End Records WE 105, 1978 - reissued Big Break CDBBR 0211, 2015) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Bring on the Boys
2. Where Is He
3. Baby You Ain't Nothing Without Me
4. Hot Shot
5. God Knows I'm Just a Woman
6. Beau
7. Bring on the Boys (12-Inch Disco Version) (West End WES 22114X-A, 1978)
8. Baby You Ain't Nothing Without Me (12-Inch Disco Version) (West End WES 22114X-B, 1978)
9. Where is He (Long Version) (previously unreleased)
10. Bring on the Boys (Long Version) (previously unreleased)
11. Hot Shot (Long Single Version) (West End WES 1211-A, 1978)