Showbiz411

Poor Madonna! What a year she’s having. Madonna is being sued 22 years after her hit song, “Vogue,” came out. Apparently new computer programs can detect samples hidden in records. Both “Vogue” and a 1977 disco record by the Salsoul Orchestra were each written and produced by Richard “Shep” Pettibone. (Madonna helies heavily, let’s say, on collaborators.)  If that name sounds familiar it’s because in addition to working with Madonna, Pettibone remixed almost all the records of the late 80s and early 90s. That’s why so many of them sound the same. But early in his career he worked with Salsoul Records and the self named group.

Salsoul Orchestra was the kind of thing that disco haters really hated in the late 70s. It was like soft funk mixed with soft jazz and then whipped into a smooth frappe that made you gag while you desperately hunted out the Clash, the Jam or Elvis Costello. Anyway, I digress. Seems Pettibone is accused of pulling some old horns and strings off of a Salsoul hit called “Ooh (I Love It)” and burying them in “Vogue” to give it its propulsion. Frankly, the original record by SalSoul sounds like it borrowed from Van McCoy’s “The Hustle.” Now everyone who worked with Pettibone — and the list is long, long long– should go back and see what he hid in their records. He remixed a lot of Janet Jackson’s and the Pet Shop Boys’  hit records. But I’d start by analyzing Pettibone’s Madonna contributions:

Madonna – Where’s the Party (1986)
Madonna – Into the Groove (1985)
Madonna – Causing a Commotion (1987)
Madonna – Like a Prayer (1989)
Madonna – Express Yourself (1989)
Madonna – Keep it Together (1990)
Madonna – Vogue (1990)
Madonna – Justify My Love (1990)
Madonna – Rescue Me (1991)
Madonna – Erotica (1992)
Madonna – Deeper and Deeper (1992)
Madonna – This Used to Be my Playground (1992)
Madonna – Bad Girl (1993)
Madonna – Fever (1993)
Madonna – Rain (1993)

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.