Songs from the promised land

I really like Findlay Brown's cover of Joe Smooth's 1987 house classic "Promised Land", since it in my view is a homage to the soul music that influenced the Chicago house music in general, and Smooth's song in particular. The original is very dear to me, and I would say that there are few places in time that has influenced me as much as Chicago around the mid and late 80s, with perhaps the exception of Detroit around the same time. Of course i didn't really know it then, being a kid in a suburb outside Stockholm, Sweden at the time.

Anyway, there isn't a greater feeling than popping a copy of "Promised Land" in the cassette deck of your red Italian sportscar, cruising with the top down and chatting with some chick on your car phone...



So when Villa makes a remix of the cover it's sort of like making a sequel to a prequel. Like a meta-song if you will. How do you avoid ending up making the same track as the original, never mind making a track that's good enough to be measured with one of the most legendary tracks of all time? Well, I don't know. You have to ask Villa who, like Findlay Brown, manages to make a track good enough to stand on its own feet while at the same track paying enough respect to the original.

Findlay Brown - Promised Land

Findlay Brown - Promised Land (Villa Remix)

Joe Smooth - Promised Land (Original Mix)