Singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ Leon Sylvers III wrote his first hit for family soul band The Sylvers in 1972, and had already clocked up an impressive music industry career when he left the group in ’78 to take up the role of in-house producer at the newly created SOLAR label. His influential production work through the first half of the ‘80s delivered massive singles and albums for Shalamar, The Whispers, his own vehicle Dynasty, Carrie Lucas, Evelyn Champagne King, Tavares, Midnight Star and more, as well as neatly charting the emergence of the classic mid-80s electro-soul sound from the ashes of disco.
Inspired by Motown’s bassmaster James Jameson, Sylvers wrote his songs on the bass, writing basslines as a harmonic counterpoint to the melody, and his clear, punchy bass sound (while most of his peers played Fender Precision or Jazzmaster basses, Sylvers preferred Rickenbackers like Jameson) and his precise, economical yet devastatingly effective playing style were key factors in the SOLAR sound.
Sylvers’ production career began when the music industry was rapidly losing interest in disco, with radio stations switching to AOR formats and labels closing their disco departments and dropping disco artists. His response was to lower the tempos in his records, and subtly move the rhythmic emphasis from the four-beats-to-the-bar, straight pulse of disco, to the backbeat, or the two and the four — the beats you clap on. Sylvers was also one of a handful of producers enthusiastically pioneering the deft integration of synths and drum machines with traditional instrumentation in soul music. Sylvers’ approach, together with his songwriting prowess, proved commercially successful, creatively influential and resulted in a musically bountiful, joyously funky, hi-fidelity production catalogue, as well as gifting the world some of soul/funk/disco/r’n’b’s most sublime basslines in the process.