Richard Earnshaw remembers: he remembers the 1990s when a half decent record release would sell 10,000 units or more; when major labels were all but too eager to hire big name DJs to remix their R&B acts. He remembers those timeless records of the 1970s, complete with 12-piece string sections, 8-piece horn sections and booming gospel choirs, and of course he remembers when the rest of the world jumped on the bandwagon of creating disco records to make a quick buck. But Richard Earnshaw doesn’t want to be a grumpy old man, reminiscing about the days before file sharing stormed the music scene, and lamenting the supposed death of vinyl. Instead, he’s embracing the musical traditions of jazz and disco that mean so much to him, while also deftly riding the wave of philosophical and technological advancement. Earnshaw has always been immersed in music, from his jazz-guitarist-Father and Opera- singer Mother (who still performs with the Royal Opera House) to the live jazz ensembles he played with in school. In fact, Earnshaw may well have made his way as a musician playing strictly in ensembles and jazz groups had he not started writing music in college and discovered his penchant for electronic music and computers. From there it seemed a natural fit to play jazz music over dance beats. As an accomplished producer and remixer, Earnshaw now runs two record labels, Duffnote and One51 Recordings. He has made an indelible mark as a producer many times over with releases and remixes on Soulfuric (“People Are People” and “Do What You Wanna”) and other record labels, including Swing City Records and Pepermint Jam. His latest release, “If You Don’t Know Me” (recently released on One51), has a distinct 70s funk and soul feel, from the instrumentation and arrangement to the simple-yet-pensive lyrics and their delivery by Simon Green. His studio cohorts are also his band mates, with whom he takes to live, organic performances on occasion. Earnshaw’s live performances seem to channel the traditions of American Jazz as much as they do the spirit of dance music. While it is steeped in influences of the past, this organic sound seems to be some of the most thoughtful dance music being created today, even if it is at times completely improvised in the moment. “I’ve done that [live House music performance] before with Fusion Groove Orchestra a few years ago,” Earnshaw recalls. “There were no sequencers or loops. It was all live, and even some of it was improvised. We set up structures, much like a jazz Real Book, with verses, chorus, bridge, A Section, B Section, and had vocalists. At some gigs we would just sit there until someone would call out the key to start in, get a groove going and off we went. That’s really exciting and that’s what we really want to end up doing. At the moment, a lot of time is taken up sorting out the labels themselves.” Earnshaw’s musical diversity is easily seen in his two record labels, showing his desire to not just satisfy the traditional soulful house sound, but also to allow musicians and artists to creatively shape the future sound of House, even if that means pushing the envelope at times. “In terms of material, Duffnote has set itself up to be a soulful dance music label,” Earnshaw explains. “One51 is a label that simply puts out music. We’re really just trying to have a bit of everything with that label; we don’t want to be stuck in too much of a niche with that one. We enjoy writing and producing so many different styles of music. Duffnote was very much set up on the work I had done in the past and it has molded itself a niche and we wanted another vehicle.” Even songs like “Yesterday’s Gone”, produced under the moniker Orekid, shows Earnshaw’s penchant for going outside the lines to more spaced-out and ethereal sounds. He even reveals that there are projects in the works which are taking on a more hip-hop and commercial sound. While a DJ set or live performance can easily channel the past in ways that captivate an audience, the physical and material aspects of music refuse to root themselves in one place. As is often the case the only constant is change, evidenced by the progression from 78 and 331/3 RPM records to digital MP3 files. While the newest digital media can sometimes seem only slightly tangible, Earnshaw proves thoughtful in his views on one of the most hot-button issues of the last five years. “It’s a very exciting time and we’re always positive and optimistic about it,” Earnshaw explains of the shift. “There’s been a period over the last five years where the music industry simply hasn’t caught up with the speed of technology and sharing files. For now, the industry is starting to put together laws where they are able to shut people down for doing these illegal sharing activities.” “We still sell vinyl,” he contends. Despite an affinity for traditional vinyl, Earnshaw is hoping that the industry will be able to abandon the traditional ideas of record sales and units sold. “We’re not selling what some labels were selling in ‘95 or ’96, when a half decent release would shift ten thousand or more records,” Earnshaw concedes. “We look at it now as 1000 or 1200 vinyl sales, but ‘sales’ includes units altogether. So if we’re selling 500 vinyl records and 5000 legitimate downloads, then who cares. It’s just the way the music is changing, and rather than moaning about you have to embrace the fact that more people are buying MP3s for their fancy CDJs than are buying vinyl for their old decks. We’re just getting stuck in the middle [as the music makers] and we want to make sure that we don’t get stuck by the wayside with loads of old men groaning about how people don’t buy vinyl.” When the idea of legal download sites first came onto the scene, and the world saw how well iTunes was doing, the question on everyone’s mind was if it was truly possible to sell your music on the internet for 99 cents a song. Could artists really make money with this method?
To hear Earnshaw tell it, you get the sense that there are two distinct ways to approach the developing technology: by being reactive, as the music industry has been in trying to restrict people’s listening activities through means of legal intimidation, or by being proactive, as Earnshaw and others have, by embracing and working with new technologies to ensure not only personal success but also the future longevity of House music as a whole. Earnshaw is certainly willing to go along for the ride, explaining that it is truly possible for artists and labels to make money selling their music over the internet, and perhaps get back on an even keel after years of declining sales. “If you think about how much money you make on a single unit of vinyl versus selling an MP3, they are basically identical,” he explains. “In terms of profit margins, since there are no manufacturing costs for MP3s, it’s the same.” This doesn’t mean, however, that Earnshaw will be selling off his vinyl collection on Ebay anytime soon. Instead, he’s content to watch and experience the new technology break itself in and find a proper balance with the buying public. After all, the idea of CDJs and label-sanctioned MP3 downloads is still very new – digital has not conquered vinyl yet. In fact they may still learn to live hand in hand – someday. “I still like vinyl,” says Earnshaw. “It sounds better, hands down. It has a certain warmth, grittiness and filth to it that you can’t get out of an MP3. There are people who spend a lot of money on these online download sites and perhaps they’ll look at how much they’ve spent after twelve months and say ‘I’ve spent $2,000 and what do I have to show for it -- a fragmented hard drive. There’s no vinyl, there’s no physical thing that I’ve bought.’ Personally, I still prefer vinyl compared to MP3. Perhaps they’ll be resurgence in vinyl sales.”
Richard Earnshaw’s ever-expanding discography of productions and remixes stands out due in large part to its durability and vitality; while many of the tracks capture the sound of a certain year or a certain moment in House music, they also hold their ground with today’s best tracks. Moments that stand out in Earnshaw’s mind include the Fusion Groove Orchestra remix of Lynden David Hall’s “Forgive Me” and his bootleg remix of Julie McKnight’s “Diamond Life” which ended up seeing a proper release on Yoshitoshi Records. ‘Forgive Me’ was the first major production we got to do and it still gets played now,” he reflects. “Sebastian from Kneee Deep told me that they still play it, and it’s nice to know that it’s stood the test of time.” “‘Diamond Life’ was the first time I had done an edit of anything, even though it’s not much of an edit as opposed to my own reconstruction with just the acapella. Lots of things happened around that time, there were a couple of bootlegs of that track—I realized then that if you give a CDR to a half dozen people, in a week a hundred people would have it. I said, ‘Wow, it’s such a small world.’ Plus, that was eventually officially released on Yoshitoshi. That was another step up in terms of recognition of what I was doing, even though it started as a bootleg.” In 2001, Earnshaw (along with Sir Piers and Mark Horwood, collectively known as Fusion Groove Orchestra) remixed Boris Dlogosch’s “Never Enough”, a track which sounded like a trip back in time to Studio 54. Even four years later, this record and the FGO remix, epitomizes all the elements of a good House record. “It was the last one we did as Fusion Groove Orchestra, the summer before I released ‘People Are People,’ Earnshaw recalls. “It was great fun doing that, because it was an old bass line that I had going around my head for years and years and it just happened to fit. Of course it’s not a groundbreaking bass line; it’s quite similar to a lot of disco records. But it fit, along with the strings and it was a breezy, airy mix. After that moment, after that we all separated to do our own things. Sir Piers of course has gone on to his sound and I’ve gone on to my sound, as has Mark, whose has also been developing his own sound.” While there are numerous micro-genres to fit Earnshaw’s music into (Garage House, Four on the Floor House, Disco House, etc), Earnshaw prefers to give credit to the origins and roots of the music, unabashedly declaring his affinity for Disco. Earnshaw sees value not only in the historical aspects of House music’s Disco roots, but in the excitement of a pure, full-on organic sound created by living, breathing musicians just like himself, and his Mother and Father before him. “House music in its truest form is a hyper extension of what Disco used to be,” he explains. “It’s a real go back to the proper basics: soulful, gospel, Blues oriented music that’s been around for years, decades. I think that the future for people like us is to do things like that live. We’ve always tried to put as much live elements into our music as possible. But back in the day because the music industry was strong, you could afford to get a 12 piece string section, 8 piece horn section, and a whopping great gospel choir to get that massive organic sound. Now, nobody in their right mind would shell out that kind of money if it’s only going to sell 1000 units.” “So much music has come and gone,” Earnshaw reflects. “Garage came and went, Drum n’ Bass’s mass appeal came and went. Electro and Tech House are big right now, but it’s all happened before. What we have now is a harder version of Kraftwerk. But with people like Tortured Soul and Reel People, who are looking to do this stuff live, it’s all going to come round again.” Earnshaw sees determined people, just like himself, who are staying true to their creative vision and the House sound, even if isn’t Top of the Pops right now. He is convinced (and he is in good company, frankly) that the roots of House music will never be indistinguishable; they will always be with us no matter how much technology may shake up the music industry, and no matter how many musical mutations come and go.
“People are saying ‘we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing because we love doing it,’” he insists. “We are selling records, and eventually we will be selling more because that’s what people want to buy. We’re not chasing after a big floor-filling type of record; we just want to put out some nice music and hopefully some people will have the same opinion and go out and buy it. It’s nice to see and hear people who are not always chasing the carrot of the dollar.”
Words by Alex R. Mayer for JJazproJect.com Photos and logos supplied by Richard Earnshaw.
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