The Jacksons ~ Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground) 1978 Funky Purrfection Version

While the Jackson Five were a family group, the spotlight shone the brightest on the youngest member, Michael. Right from the start, he displayed a spirit as old as music itself, with a powerhouse voice, charisma and dance moves in a combination that no one has been able to duplicate since. Soft spoken and meek in person, he was an intensely focused young man who demanded perfection and was rewarded with the best Motown had to offer in the hits "ABC", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save" and in a surprising change of sound, "I'll Be There" and "Never Can Say Goodbye" where Micheal displayed his amazing versatility.

When the group moved to Columbia/Epic, Jermaine jumped the Jackson ship and stayed at Motown (he married Hazel Gordon, Berry Gordon's daughter) but the rest of the boys moved on to greater success with the Gamble/Huff produced "The Jacksons" LP from 1976, then lost traction again with the Top 40 placement of 1977's "Goin Places". The following year, after taking a more active producing role the band put out 1978's aptly named "Destiny", had two major hits; "Blame It On The Boogie" in the spring of 1978 and then "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" for the summer, both songs reaching #20 on the disco charts.

A 12" extended disco version gave the funk tune a new booming rhythm and latin style percussion track that turned it into a hurricane level rock dance track for the clubs. I always loved the original recording, its a lot funkier and fuller sounding to me, the opening cymbal fading quickly into this piano driven funk, and it feels like the sun is coming out from behind a cloud. I got the idea to remix this one a couple of days ago, before I realized that Michael's birthday on the 29th. Oh well, a day late, a dollar short, who cares when you can get out and dance to Michael and forget all about your troubles and shake that body down to the ground.

The album version has this really great breakdown segment that ended the song near the 8 minute mark that I thought would be more fun in the middle. It still sounds incredibly hot to me, I've been humming it for almost a week now.