Dayton - Feel The Music (1983/2008)

Whenever a thriving music scene emerges in a given point in time/geography, there will always be groups that never got their due respect/notoriety the way they should have. In this case, set the way-back machine to Dayton, OH, during the 1980s -- Switch was well on its way to being a memory, Zapp was well in its prime, and just up the expressway a bit, Dazz Band was holding on to fame up in Cleveland. However, it was the group named after its own city that kept the home fires burning strongly. Its last and best release, Dayton's Feel the Music was a flare-gun shot in the dark that nobody expected. With the more than able production and songwriting assistance of Roger Troutman, Feel the Music is indeed a lost classic within the pile of dusties. Not only retaining the infamous bump and boogie of Troutman's Zapp classics on many tunes, Feel the Music stretches beyond anything else Dayton had done musically, with songwriting that would have made many fans of the Paradise Garage flip their wigs, had they paid closer attention. With warm analog synths, rip vocals, and enough looseness to fill the Grand Canyon, Feel the Music was a more than appropriate farewell to a group that never received the full acclaim it was due.