Drive Album Discography
The Drive label
began about 1972 with "Motor City Madness" by Together [Drive 6223], followed by unsuccessful singles
by Willie Johnson, the Fabulous Chromes, Frank Nassan, Johnny K [Killen] & the Home Boys, Chuck
Armstrong, the Ocean Liners, the Perfections, and High Voltage. It was fall, 1974, before Drive got any
taste of the national record charts.
The breakthrough band was called Miami (appropriately enough), and made #51 on the R&B charts with "Party Freaks" [Dash 6234]. This success warranted Drive's first album, The Party Freaks [Drive 101]. Miami featured lead vocalist Robert Moore, along with guitarist Warren Thompson, keyboardist Bobby Williams, bassist Willie Jackson, and drummer Freddie Scott. The group had a total of eight singles and three albums on Drive, but only had one more hit single, "Kill that Roach" [Drive 6251, 8/76, #42 R&B/#102 pop], which headlined their second album, Notorious Miami [Drive 102], which reached #57 on the R&B album charts.
Another Miami disco group, Family Plann, had a #71 R&B charter in June, 1975, with "Sexy Summer."
Other than the two Miami charters and the Family Plann hit, Drive had a long dry spell until the summer
of 1977. Singles by Jimmy "Bo" Horne, Toby King, the Funky Party Band, Joey Porrello, Debra
Anderson, Rocky Mizell & the Sugar Rock Band, Wild Honey, and the Funk Machine all failed.
For a time in early 1976, it looked like Drive would take a different direction, as three straight singles were by rock and roll acts from the 1960s. The first, Dash 6248, seemed strikingly out of place at first glance: Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Ain't Nothin' Wrong"/"You're Really Saying Something." That is, until one realized that the band was nothing like the band of the 1960s. Mark Lindsay was gone, Drake Levin was gone, Phil Volk was gone, Jim Valley was gone...in short, everybody was gone from the group's heydays except Paul Revere, who owned the name. Carl Driggs, who had been the lead singer for Kracker and helped on an album by Foxy, all on T.K.'s Dash label, became the lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders.
The second single of the sixties rock threesome was Wayne Cochran's "Sea Cruise"/"Shoot the Model" [Drive 6249], while Drive 6250 was "The Day the Clown Cried"/"Our Day Is Here" by Jimmy Beaumont & the Skyliners (!?). None of the three charted, and Drive was soon back to disco and R&B.
In the summer of 1977, Drive finally had a big hit. Peter Brown's "Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me"
[Drive 6258/T.K. Disco 35] made #18 on the pop charts, #3 on the R&B charts, and #9 on the dance
charts. The disco 12" single was reportedly the first disco single to sell a million copies. The song had
backing vocals by Wildflower, the group who recorded for T.K.'s Dash label. Peter Brown was a home
tinkerer, building his own studio at home and recording ideas and demos there. He met Cory Wade, a
Chicago-based music producer, and began sending him ideas on tape. He sent a three-song tape with
a ballad on it he thought would be a hit, but Wade liked another of the three a lot better. It was "Do You
Wanna Get Funky with Me". Wade played the demo for Henry Stone and a contract and album deal
followed shortly thereafter. Stone wanted to release the demo as is, but Brown was reluctant to release a
record he had recorded in his bedroom on a 4-track recorder, with all the instruments done by himself
except a saxophone overdub by a friend. He talked Stone into redoing the song in a professional studio,
adding background vocals, etc.
The album, A Fantasy Love Affair [Drive 104], also sold well, making #11 on the top pop albums and #9 on the R&B albums charts, helped no doubt by the striking cover artwork. That, too, was done by Peter Brown himself, who started out photographing friends in various poses through sheers in a neighbor's window. Unsatisfied, he finally constructed a cardboard cutout of a model from a composite of photos in Playboy, and photographed that through the window (Hmmm... Del Reeves' "Girl on the Billboard" comes to mind...). A second single from the album, "Dance with Me", with additional vocals by Betty Wright [Drive 6269/T.K. Disco 75] was released in December, 1977, and made #58 on the pop charts, but #5 on the R&B charts and #4 on the dance charts. A non-LP single followed, "You Should Do It" [Drive 6272], also with Betty Wright, which made #54 pop and #25 R&B in the fall of 1978. Going back to the first album, the next single, "A Fantasy Love Affair"/"It's True What They Say About Love" [Drive 6274/T.K. Disco 127], released near the end of 1978, failed to chart.
Brown's second album, Stargazer [Drive 108], was released in early 1980. It contained his hit
from the previous summer, "Crank It Up (Funk Town)" [Drive 6278/T.K. Disco 151], which reached #9 on
the R&B charts and #4 on the dance charts (#86 pop). Another single was pulled from the album in April,
"Can't Be Love-Do It to Me Anyway" [Drive 6286/Drive 12" 441], which reached #6 on the dance charts
and #74 R&B. The dance clubs were not going to be limited to the singles released, though, as in the
meantime "Love in Our Hearts/Leadmeon" from the LP also made #65 on the dance charts starting in
February, 1980. Peter Brown eventually retired from performing, partly due to hearing problems. He did,
however, write Madonna's hit "Material Girl."
The same summer that "Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me" was sailing up the charts, Drive had another chart record, as "Theme from Disco" by Sassy [Drive 6260/T.K. Disco 46] reached #36 on the dance charts. Other artists with unsuccessful singles for the label included Harry Deal & the Galaxies, the Bad City Band, Midnight Magic, the Funk Machine, the Florida Players, Uptown Local featuring Bobby Cotter, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, Brenda & Herb, George Fischoff, and Wizzdom, who had the honor of the last single released, "Love Was Really Meant for You"/"I'm So in Love with You" [Drive 6287].
Gypsy Lane was a Philadelphia-based sextet featuring two lead singers backed by a four-piece band. They had one album on Drive, Predictions [Drive 106], but no singles. The singers were "Gypsy Lane" and Phil Hurtt, and they were backed by (all shared background vocals) Jimmy Lee (lead guitar), Rodger Lee (rhythm guitar), Alfonso Carey (bass), and Russell Dabney (drums). Keyboards on this album were provided by Nathanial Wilkie, although arranger Larry Davis usually played keyboards. The Gypsy Lane Band has reformed and is performing in Miami today, but only Alfonso Carey and Larry Davis are original members. Band members were in several other acts' backing bands, including the Village People's.
"Brenda & Herb" were Brenda and Herb Reid, formerly members of the Exciters, who hit in 1962 with "Tell Him." The duo had a hit in England with "Reachin' for the Best" in 1975, but their 1978 album In Heat Again [Drive 109] contained no hits, as their one single on Drive, "I Who Have Nothing"/"Sweet Dreamer" [Drive 6275/T.K. Disco 127] did not chart.
The J.B.'s, of course, were a spinoff of James Brown's band (hence the name), led by Fred Wesley. Their first single for Drive, "Rock Groove Machine, Parts 1 & 2" [Drive 6277/T.K. Disco 436] made #82 on the Dance charts. Their followup single, "Just Wanna Make You Dance"/"The Groove Machine" [Drive 6282], taken from Drive's last album release, Groove Machine [Drive 111], missed the charts.
