Dexter Wansel
Wikimp3 information about the music of Dexter Wansel. On our website we have 11 albums and 44 collections of artist Dexter Wansel. You can find useful information and download songs of this artist. We also know that Dexter Wansel represents Hip Hop/R&B genres.
Biography
[Edit]Keyboardist/arranger/producer/recording artist Dexter Wansel can be heard throughout the catalog of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records. His skills can be heard on non-PIR sides like Jermaine Jackson's "Where Are You Now" from his gold LP Let's Get Serious and "Tonight" from Junior's Acquired Taste LP. His frequent songwriting partners were Cynthia Biggs, Bunny Sigler, and T. Life. A synth pioneer, Wansel's first LP arranging assignment was several tracks on Carl Carlton's 1975 LP, I Wanna Be With You, produced by Bunny Sigler. A Biggs/Wansel song, "The Sweetest Pain," a duet between Wansel and Jean Carn, originally a 1979 single from Wansel's Time Is Slipping Away LP, was a popular radio-aired LP from Loose Ends' Zagora LP. Two of Carn's LPs, When I Find You Love (entirely produced by Wansel) and Sweet and Wonderful, and Jean Carn and Happy to Be With You were issued on a two-album single CD by U.K. label Westside Records in early 1999.
When Wansel was 12 years old, he got the job of a gofer for the Uptown Theater in Philadelphia, going to get sandwiches and clothes out of the cleaners for the various acts that performed at the venue like Stevie Wonder and Patti Labelle. Many years later, Wansel would co-write a number one R&B hit for Labelle. In 1975, Wansel met Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff when he was a member of a band called Yellow Sunshine, which also boasted guitarist Roland Chambers who would later become a part of MFSB, the house band for Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International Records. Becoming a part of the staff creative collective, Wansel began arranging, playing keyboards, and writing songs for the label's acts including the O'Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, and the Intruders, among others.
When Patti Labelle signed with PIR, she recorded Wansel's "Shoot Him on Sight," a song Wansel intended for Jackson Browne, on her 1981 album The Spirit's in It. A song Wansel co-wrote with Kenneth Gamble and Cynthia Biggs, the lovely unrequited love ballad "If Only You Knew," held the number one R&B spot for four weeks in early 1984. It was on her I'm in Love Again LP, which went gold, hitting number four R&B.
A partial list of Wansel-associated sides would include Jean Carn's popular radio-aired LP tracks "I'm in Love Once Again," "You Are All I Need" (music by Instant Funk), "Where Did You Ever Go," "Free Love," and the dance classic "Give It Up"; Shirley Jones' "Last Night I Needed Somebody" and "She Knew About Me"; The Jacksons' "Keep on Dancin'," "Living Together," "Do What You Wanna Do," and "Jump for Joy"; The Stylistics' "Hurry Up This Way Again,"; keyboardist Patrice Rushen covered "Hurry Up This Way Again"; The O'Jays' dreamy ballad "I Really Need You Now"; Phyllis Hyman's radio-aired track "Living All Alone"; The Jones Girls' "We're a Melody", the exotic "Nights Over Egypt," "Love Don't Ever Say Goodbye," and "Why You Wanna Do That to Me"; Archie Bell and the Drells' "Old People"; and Evelyn "Champagne" King's "Till I Come Off the Road" and the radio-aired LP track ballad "The Show Is Over."
Wansel's own charting LPs were Life on Mars from summer 1976 (includes two tracks with Instant Funk, "Life on Mars" and "You Can Be What You Wanna Be"), What the World Is Coming To, Voyager (with its great space-age oriented graphics) from spring 1978, and Time Is Slipping Away from 1979. Several tracks from his LPs were radio-aired LP tracks (the lushly orchestrated "Theme From the Planets," the spacy, funky "Disco Lights") and some songs — "Together Once Again," "One Million Miles From the Ground," and "Holdin' On" — are still in singers' repertoire today. "Holdin' On" was a radio-aired LP track from actor Lawrence Hilton Jacobs' self-titled album produced by Lamont Dozier. "Global Warming" from the 1991 PIR/Zoo/BMG CD Universe Featuring Dexter Wansel received some airplay on smooth jazz radio stations. During the '90s, Wansel continued to work with the reactivated Philadelphia International Records and occasionally toured.
Dexter Wansel-related releases are Grover Washington, Jr. Ultimate Collection, Heaven & Earth-That's Love, Best of MFSB: Love Is the Message, and Best of the Intruders.
Title: The Jeane Carne Instrumentals - EP
Artist: Dexter Wansel, Jean Carn
Genre: Ambient, Electronica, Hip Hop/R&B, Soul
Collections
Title: Jazzy Vibes - Soulful Jazz Licks from the 70s
Genre: Jazz
Title: 80'S Groove: Old Skool Funk Soul Classics (CD2)
Genre: Dancefloor, Pop
Title: Pulp Fusion 15 (CD2)
Title: 100 Hits: Disco (CD3)
Genre: Disco
Title: Philadelphia International: The Re-Edits (CD1)
Genre: Electronica, Soul, Funk
Title: Ferry Maat's Soul Show 03 Soft Soul Show The Ballads (CD2)
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk
Title: Sweaty Night
Title: Late Night Tease
Title: Hussy Cocktail
Title: Philadelphia International Records 12' Singles (CD1)
Genre: Soul, Dancefloor, Disco, Funk
Title: Old School Slow Jam, Vol. 2 Dj First Mike
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Funk
Title: Loft Classics Vol. 3
Genre: Electronica, Soul, Jazz, Disco, Funk
Title: David Mancuso Presents The Loft (CD1)
Genre: Electronica, Soul, Disco, Funk
Title: Grand 12-Inches 11 (CD4)
Title: 100 Disco Hits (CD3)
Genre: Dancefloor, Pop, Dance Pop
Title: Back To My Place Baby
Title: 100 Hits: Disco
Genre: Disco
Title: Jazz Funk Sessions
Title: The Legacy Of Soul
Genre: Soul
Title: Best 100 RnB And Rap Touch Hits (CD1)
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Jazz
Title: 100 Hits - The Best Soul Album (CD3)
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Blues, Funk Rock, Rock & Roll, World Music, Disco, Pop, Folk
Title: Soul Classics, Vinyl (CD3)
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Jazz, Rock, New Wave, Rock & Roll, Rockabilly, Disco
Title: Soul Classics: 60 Classics From The Legends Of Soul (CD3)
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Funk
Title: Philly Soul Reunion
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk
Title: Philadelphia International Records - The Remixes, Vol. 2
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk
Title: Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now: 50 Years Of P. I. R 2021
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco
Title: Philadelphia International Records: The Mike Maurro Remixes
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk
Title: Mastermix Essential Hits: Jazz Soul Funk 2023
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Essential John Luongo - The Dance Mixes
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco, Funk
Featuring albums
Title: Late Night Tales: Jamiroquai (Remastered)
Artist: Jamiroquai
Genre: Electronica, Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Rock, Dancefloor, Disco, Dance Pop, Funk
Title: Old School Slow Jam, Vol. 2 Dj First Mike
Artist: Dj First Mike
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Funk
Title: Don’t Let It Go To Your Head: The Anthology
Artist: Jean Carn
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Disco