| Date |
Gig |
Venue |
| 5/4/08 |
Anda De Bridge, Old Street |
| 4/4/08 |
Studio Time |
St Matthews Church, Brixton |
| 6/4/08 |
House of Joy, Cottons |
Rum Jungle, London EC1R |
| 4&5&6/6/08 |
Soulvillage Weekender |
|
DJ BOOKER T
Booker T's career as a DJ began in the early 80's playing Reggae, Rare Groove, Hip Hop and R & B sounds. His involvement with this music scene continued into the late 80's when he joined a pirate station known as Faze One Radio playing alongside Groove Rider, Fabio, Colin Dale all styles of music, including early house classics “You Used to Hold Me”. As the scene evolved House music became a defined genre of Dance with an ever increasing following. A trip to the U.S. introduced him to the sounds of Masters At Work, Todd Terry, and Tony Humphries.
“my time in New York was spent hanging out with Jerome Sydenham, at that time he was working for Atlantic Records, where he introduced me to the nightclub called The Shelter, checking out the sounds of Merlin Bob and Timmy Regisford and meeting Freddie Sannon of Shelter Records”
Booker T was inspired by the vitality & atmosphere of New York's night life returned to London with a new musical focus.
His debut House Set was played at Bobby & Steve's now legendary Garage City at the Podium.
Booker performed his our first PA there under the name of Underground Mass, he continued to play at various venues across London such as the Raw Club in Tottenham Court Road for Bobby and Steve.
At this time Booker got into the production of House music, signed to the label Azuli Records Booker released 4 tracks as Underground Mass. These included 'Guilty Didn't I', which was played in New York by Tony Humphries on Kiss FM and got signed to Big Beat Atlantic Records, 'Music Takes Control', 'Give Me The Love' and 'Hard Times'. After the success of these releases on Azuli Records Booker began producing tracks for labels such as Heartbeat via Media Records and Suntune Records in Italy. He met with BB Stone, Producer Keyboardist and started remixing for labels Jive, Virgin, EMI and Universal. Booker was the first British producer to produce a track on the seminal label Strictly Rhythm these tracks were Inner Soul's 'Tearing me apart' and Club Zone's 'Dangerous EP'. As Booker's production career progressed he produced tracks for Junior Boys Own, Interstate Records, Phuture Trax, Xtra Large and A & M Records under the moniker Rhythm Source, signed by Simon Dunmore. Then went on to work with Roger Sanchez, Eddy Perez from Smack Productions, DJ Disciple, Lenny Fontana, DJ Romain and DJ Camacho. Booker returned to New Jersey to work with DJ Camacho and Eddy Perez on Production, then onto Strictly Rhythm in New York and hooked up with Gladys, Head of A & R, where Gladys and Armand Van Helden took me to Sound Factory Bar to listen to Louie Vega and Tony Humphries; at this time Booker T was managed by Big Life Management, where he worked on various Remix projects including Truce and Robert Owens. He has has played sets at many internation Venues including a residency at ES Paradis, Club Summum, Ibiza, playing with Jazz 'n' Groove, Chrissy T, Paul Trouble Anderson, Femi B, Bobby & Steve. Booker has also played at events in all over England (clubs like Hard Times, Back 2 Basics, Ministry of Sound, The End, Garage City, For the Love of House, To the Mannor Borne, Soul Heaven, Faces, Yacht Club, The Astoria, Rouge, Sin), Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Singapore, Malaysia, Miami, Seattle, Houston, Texas, Washington DC and New York, LA (Viper Rooms) and San Francisco. Whilst on tour in California Booker met Pete Avquella, David Harness, Julias Papps and Jay J at Molton Street Studios and some of the guys from Naked Music. He played at parties with Kerri Chandler and the Basement Boys; and DJ'd at a few Garage City partie during the Winter Music Conference in Miami where he was interviewed by June Sarpong and Eric Morillo for MTV.
To date his remix credits include Lemar, Dwele, Faith Evans, Soul to Soul, Brand New Heavies, Quincy Jones, Sounds Of Blackness, Moloko, Byron Stingly, Jodi atley, Robert Owens, D-Influence, Robin S, Mood II Swing, Elephant Man, Jocylene Brown, Craig David, Marvin Gaye, Kirk Franklin, Mica Paris, Usher, CeCe Peniston, Nate James, Michael Watford, Roy Ayres and All Saints - triple platinum artists. He won 'Remix Of The Year' at the Underground Garage Awards, and was Runner-Up to Fat Boy Slim at the DJ Mag Music Awards. Booker T was involved in the UK Garage scene, playing with the likes of Karl Tuff Enuff Brown, Matt Jam Lamont, EZ and Grant Nelson, than moved back to the House scene.
Booker T's notority for his talent as both a Producer and DJ means there is a continuous demand for his House and production sets.
Booker T has got tracks out on Xtra Large Records; with tracks from Su Su Bobian, Kings of Surface and The Dazz Band 'You are my Star Ship' under the name of Kings Of Soul.
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The Doctor’s Orders 23
