Tony Moran has recently remixed such names as Michael Jackson and Celine Dion, and has managed to convince the likes of Gloria Estefan and Luther Vandross to actually re-record their vocals just for his remixes. In the past he's produced, remixed and edited a wide variety of artists from Madonna and Debbie Gibson to Duran Duran and Afrika Bambaattaa. In addition to helping carve the sound of US Freestyle, Tony has also released his own albums and singles as a singer/songwriter under the aliases of Concept Of One and more recently Deep Nation. Despite all this, and a few dates DJing at the Ministry Of Sound the other month, there are still people here in the UK who haven't heard of him. So who is this person who gets to play with the superstars master tapes, and where has he been all your life?

THE LATIN RASCALS

Tony began his career with partner Albert Cabrera as The Latin Rascals in the early eighties. Their exciting style of fast paced chopped up rhythms were created by numerous razor blade edits on the master tape. Their style paved the way for many other 'editors' such as Omar Santana and the late Chep Nunez, who amongst a plethora of fine achievements were both responsible for the crazy shit on those Mantronix mega-mixes. Even Mixology's editor cites the Rascals as a major influence on his Megabass work - pretty pioneering stuff, eh? "I didn't realise we were being pioneering at the time!", Tony points out, though. "Every time I'd play what I'd done to someone else they'd say 'You're a maniac!'. You tend to create out of necessity sometimes and I didn't realise that what I was doing was crazy because it's a step by step process and doesn't feel like it's crazy at the time you're creating it. I was a mobile DJ and, back then, shared the same problem with many other DJs - the intros and breaks were rarely long enough. Take Chic "Good Times", for example. I wanted that bass break to be longer so I didn't want to have to keep mixing back and forth all the time. I bought a reel-to-reel and taught myself how to edit on it and began to create extended versions of all my favourite records. After a while I got so involved into the technical side of it that I was doing all these new kinds of 'multiple edits', taking a piece of one rhythm and incorporating it into another part of the record to create a whole new rhythm."

Tony worked by night at Downtown Records in New York. his 'salary' paid in records rather than cash. He would play his tapes in the store and Albert was one of the customers he'd play them to. "Albert was doing much the same thing, but using a pause button on a tape deck and overdubbing to create his multiple edits. One day the programme director of a radio station (the equivalent of KISS) asked me if I wanted my tape played on the radio and I made him play Albert's tape too. I loved Albert's work so much that I suggested we work together and we ended up having the most popular radio mix show."

ARTHUR BAKER

It was through the radio show that record producer Arthur Baker heard their interpretation of one of his records and asked if they'd like to work with him. Arthur's Shakedown studios were only four blocks away from where Tony worked by day as a Custodian and Tony would daily take a new mix down on tape and sit there all day in case Arthur came by. They eventually became part of the Shakedown stable. "It was a wonderful experience and a great education. He was THE remix pioneer - the first person to ever create the overdub on a remix. There were some fantastic producers before him, such as Francois Kevorkian, who made some of the most interesting and creative mixes of that time - his mix of D-Train's "Keep On" is one of my all-time favourites. Wheras mixers such as Francois based their remixes on the original music, Arthur decided that what he was given was not enough and added to it."

Although Diana Ross "Swept Away" was the first commercial release featuring their work, "Breakers Revenge" by Rockers Revenge (from the Beat Street movie) was the first one that the record company actually credited them on. Having worked with Arthur, the pair went on to enjoy an immense education working with the likes of Mark Kamens, Nile Rogers and a long spell with Shep Pettibone. Although they were always credited in the 'small print', their post-production was, understandably, often assumed to be that of the credited remixer or producer and it is in this context that we refer to the likes of Tony, Albert, Omar and Chep as unsung heroes.

Although Omar Santana takes the crown for the craziest edits of all, the Latin Rascals name did quickly become synonymous with mad trickery during the break and in their dub versions. One journalist once wrote of Tony & Albert's edit work on John Rocca "Once In A Lifetime" that listening to it was like an evening in Beirut, prompted no doubt by all the shotgun edits and FX flying about! "I was really excited by it though looking back, but I guess I know where he was coming from!", Tony admits. "When you're doing something stylistic it's natural to want to incorporate as much of that as you can, which we did in those early days. Because we were given the more poppier tracks to work on, such as "Born In The USA" and Madonna's "True Blue", they often came with certain guidelines, so we couldn't go so crazy anyway. Part of the education was knowing when to stop! Once I became more understanding of what the record actually needed then I became more comfortable on holding back on the crazy stuff."

SHEP PETTIBONE

A fine example of this is their post-production work on Shep's remix of Level 42's "Something About You", in which they created a killer rhythmic groove using simply a string of different deck stops. The excitement is still there, but in a subtle and very original way. It wasn't long before the Latin Rascals became a dance act in their own right, launching with the "Macho Mozart" single and the subsequent "Bach To The Future" album project, updating classical works with street rhythms of the time. It was more their management's idea than their own and deviated from the Freestyle sound that was blowing up big for them, producing the likes of the Cover Girls. They felt they hadn't yet found their niche for the Latin Rascals 'act' and when it was suggested that they should work get a vocalist in, Tony gave it a shot himself. His vocals first appeared on a vocal version of "Arabian Nights" which proved to be an enormous success and paved the way for even more vocal tracks, which lead to Tony writing as well as producing for Freestyle artists such as Sa-Fire and TKA. As they became more popular through their songwriting as well as their production, the opportunities flowed in from the record companies. The Latin Rascals were blowing up very big indeed. When asked about his favourite Rascal production, Tony says "The quintessential Rascal record was TKA 'Tears May Fall'. At that time it was a pure Freestyle record which was made 100% just to please the crowd, while at the same time really kick ass!"

In those days they would take the finished reel-to-reel master down to Little Louie Vega at Hearthrob the same night, where he would mix it into his DJ set. Arthur Baker and Jellybean started this concept, testing such classics as "Planet Rock" to the crowd for an early reaction. "We were the next generation", Tony points out. "Louie would get to play the new tracks for five months before they were pressed up, turning tracks such as Cover Girls 'Show Me' into anthems before they even hit the street! We came up with 'Show Me' using some downtime in Arthur Baker's studio. He was always around such talented people, who would hang out and sometimes write with us. Andy Panda, who co-wrote those tracks with us, is actually my collaborator on the new Deep Nation project."

SEPERATE WAYS

The Latin Rascals split up in 1989 when it became increasingly obvious that the two had separate destinies. "Like anything you grow and develop in different ways. Albert loved to edit records and work on them from the post-production side but never wanted to be a lyricist . I, however, had started writing more with Andy and kept forcing Albert to incorporate his time into our projects. Ultimately we decided we should do our own things but remained best friends and did still work on some joint projects. A couple of months ago in fact we had a special 3-hour Latin Rascal Reunion show on the radio, playing old school Freestyle with loads of fancy edits on. It was a lot of fun! Albert still edits now, though no longer the lengthy way using a razor blade to splice up a reel of tape into hundreds of chopped up portions - these days he uses a computer. He's a natural born editor! I love editing, it's an art, and I'm very proud of many of the edits we did together, but Albert would always amaze me when he'd play me his latest edit - he's the hippy of dance music with a real tangent type of mentality!"

MIXING WITH MICHAEL JACKSON

Tony was given the chance to remix for Michael Jackson's "HIStory" project, for which he remixed "Blood On The Dancefloor", "HIStory" and also delivered the "MJ Megaremix". How did this golden opportunity come about? "After Freestyle failed it was a very tragic time for me because nobody wanted to hire anybody to do that kind of music. Fortunately I'd built a small recording facility during that time and called up all the record companies, offering to do them anything for anyone, free of charge. There was really no pride involved. I was just so desperate to create and it would have hurt me more not to create at all than to create something for nothing. I did a couple of remixes for Sony before Michael Jackson, which were Tina Arena's "Chains" and Gloria Estefan's 'I'm Not Giving You Up', which became her first top 30 record for two years in America, based on the remix. They finally threw a crumb my way and gave me Michael Jackson, which was very challenging. The way he sings his records is very weird and I wanted to make something that was danceable and still retain the song. I was really nervous about it but there was such a good response from the record company that it turned out to be a huge door opening for me in my career as a remixer. Michael is truly a great artist and a great songwriter, I just wish he'd allow himself to be exposed to what is actually happening, if you know what I'm saying. I'd love to be able to send him a cassette, not necessarily anything I've done, and say 'listen to this before you make your next record'."

When "I'm Not Giving You Up" was such a huge radio record, Tony was asked if he could perform the same magic to Barry Manilow's "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight". "I said I'd give it a shot but I felt it was a pretty standard Manilow performance and thought he needed to approach it from a different angle. I asked if he'd come in to see me and couldn't believe it when they actually said 'yes'! I got him in the studio and we had a great time re-recording the vocals. The track became his first top 40 record in about ten or fifteen years in America and since then we've written two new songs which will be used on his album." The remixes started rollercoastering from Kenny G, Whitney Houston and Gary Barlow to Jennifer Holliday. Tony started to stipulate that he saw it as an important element to get the artist to come back into his studio to re-sing the track if he was to create a complementary remix of their songs. It worked! Luther Vandross, Gloria Estefan, Patti Labelle and Jon Secada each agreed to do it! The rapport between artist and producers lead to each of them asking Tony to produce album tracks for them; two for Luther, seven on Gloria's brand new album (he co-wrote a couple) and more than half of Jon's forthcoming album, for example. "I approach each remix as if it was a production, and because I add a lot of new backgrounds and new instrumentation it can take me about four or five days of very intense work to get a remix to be how I want it to be."

When asked if there's anyone he'd really like to work with, Tony cites George Michael, for whom he has enormous respect. "I actually did do a remix of 'Fast Love' which never came out - it was one of my first remixes and the only one that ever got turned down. I was so devastated! It was a house remix but I'd restructured the song. The record company loved it but George didn't."

GOING IT ALONE

In addition to his remixes, Tony pursued a different interest with his own songwriting under the Concept Of One banner, which featured guest vocalists as well as himself. We had to ask what ever happened to that 'forthcoming' Tony Moran solo album 'Same Sun, Same Sky' which never showed? "The way it is in America, just because somebody gives you a shitload of money, it doesn't mean they're going to make you a star. When they gave me the album deal I was given a huge amount of money and they'd convinced me they were going to make me the next George Michael! I had a $150,000 video and the week before the album release they threw an incredibly expensive launch party. The day the album was mastered the company changed Presidents and A&R staff and they just went cold on it. I was off in Hawaii skydiving and my management couldn't get hold of me to tell me - they probably didn't want to in case I didn't pull the cord on the parachute!!"

Undeterred, Tony continued to release material, including his own Concept Of One album and solo tracks under his own name, the most recent project being Deep Nation which is signed to Evocative in the UK. Tony still sees himself as a kind of Jazzie B who conducts an overall project with two or three featured vocalists. "Although I'm now working with superstar names, it's important for me to occasionally come back to who I am with my music. My venting mechanism is to develop independent projects, so I can realise whatever creative fantasy that I may have at that moment. For that reason my new Deep Nation project is important to me, particularly as it's a project in which I have no-one to answer to, because that can so often infringe and compromise the creative process."