I’m not sure if some of my Wez G listeners have noticed the fact that I happen to have a little soft spot for female vocalists? From my earliest days of spinning on the decks in venues, from mainstream teeny-bopper raves to high quality fashionable nightclubs to dodgy little underground shindigs, I always seem to hit the heights of any DJ set with female vocals. So called ‘fans’ of mine used to turn up and plonk huge chunks of cheddar cheese on the decks at nights where I was DJing and some of the local lads (idiots) find it incredibly funny to wave handbags at me while I’m behind the decks, demanding that I play ‘handbag’ – you see ‘handbag house ‘ in the early nineties was the name given to some of the best and most popular funky female vocal house that used to light the dancefloors up in places like Miss Moneypennys in Birmingham etc. Where Wez G and Shuffle regularly used to DJ with a coachload of their batty Welsh ‘clubbers’ accompanying them. I don’t find it insulting at all – I’m proud of playing handbag. Some of the most seriously critical people of my penchant for ‘handbag’ and believe, they really lay it into me, are sort of local DJs, perhaps a bit jealous that you’re on the decks at the gig and not them, and sometimes you can get elitism and record snobbishness among DJs. I don’t have the time to participate in such nonsense. A record is a record and it spins, end of. It’s like racism, judging me for my handbag.
To this day, I do sometimes look at wonder what my critics might be thinking when they hear I’ve gone totally poptastic, baby, with Vine Line, almost exclusively right at the cheesy pop end of light, female singers. It makes some of my old ‘handbag’ look well underground. But who cares? I’m happy so gonna keep going. You see as professional DJ, your job is to make the dancefloor move. Here’s a little tip for wannabee. If you are given a gig and you want to make an impression and get people dancing., the fastest way to get a full, swinging dancefloor that is totally rocking out, is to drop a nice song with a female vocal on. Hear me out. You see, girls love listening to other girls chit chat and also sing. They can sing along with girly songs better than say, something more masculine. Now they will get straight on the danceflloor in their little group, maybe chuck their handbags down and have a little sort of karaoke style dance off with their mates. Now, the blokes will be trying to look cool in a ring around the edge of the dancefloor, all sort of shaking their pint glasses nervously, each sort avoiding eye contact with thei other, wondering who is going to brave enough to make the first move, and get a bit closer to the girlies in their min skirts and posh Saturday night outfits and various delicacies on offer, poking out of the tight little numbers they are wearing. These blokes are the ones that laugh at me for my tune selection. Sure enough, when my cheesy banger female vox hits, and the woman are grooving around, the blokes are too overcome with testosterone at this stage to care about abusing Wez G, nature takes over and like a herd of gazelles they all go leaping out across the plain, heading for the waterhole. The dancefloor is suddenly full, and everyone’s happy, including the lion, DJ Wez G, licking his lips and wondering how to steer the audience into something a bit more experimental, perhaps and on a dancefloor journey. Psychology of DJing. Guaranteed to work every time. Hence my love for female singers.
And among female singers, Whitney Houston is the benchmark. In my lifetime I have never known a voice like Whitney’s – It’s just perfect. She hits notes and she isn’t struggling like a Pop Idol contestant with range to power or harmony, or lyrics. She just does it, without thinking. I personally cannot accept her death. I cried and cried, watching her funeral on the BBC, more than I’ve cried at any funeral previously in my life. Most people I spoke to were angry with Bobby Brown and blamed him for her cocaine-related demise. I think that’s perhaps a bit unfair on Bobby. I dunno. Wasn’t there. Cocaine can have a devastating effect, especially within the music industry. It attracts excess use among its clients. It transcends social class, any demographic characteristics. It can be fun, can be positive but equally it can be very dangerous and very addictive and very abundant and very expensive. A lot of the finest friends and DJs that I respect etc within the clubscene have had terrible problems, battling cocaine addiction. Yes, and it apparently killed Whitney, the greatest voice of all time. I won’t whinge on and preach but heed the warning – it is dangerous. It can ruin the best of people; it can ruin anyone.
This song, is not my most favourite Whitney tune. I will save that one for special occasions. But, in this new Random Songs section, I am proud to summon the Whitney Ghost and bang on Whitney Houston – I’m Every Woman. Standard Whitney, great backing dance track 1980s style electronic beats with just a totally earth-shattering body -morphing vocal. Feminism, baby, at its best. The queen of handbag, the standard to judge against for female vocalists everywhere.