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Guitarist Danny Leake was a Chicago recording studio mainstay in the '60s and '70s. An in-demand session player while still in his teens, Leake can be heard on numerous records that date from those times. Leake eventually expanded his range by becoming an in-demand studio and live recording engineer.
Leake's discography is far too exhaustive to display here, but some of the names on that list would include Chicago soul favorites Tyrone Davis, The Chi-Lites and other acts produced by Carl Davis on Brunswick Records, as well as vocal group Heaven and Earth.
In the late '70s, Leake formed a writing/producing partnership with English dance producer Ian Levine. Recording out of Chicago, the two recruited and developed local talent and in the process creating some of the most crafted, infectious and long-lived disco music released from that genre's heyday. Levine and Leake's productions weren't of the "shake your moneymaker" variety, but instead included songs with strong melodies and emotionally layered lyrics, surrounded by highly intentive arrangements by F. Tiarch, full orchestras, top session musicians, and sophisticated sound engineering.
Two acts that Levine/Leake produced remain perrenial favorites of classic disco lovers and serious dance afficianados James Wells and Barbara Pennington. Singer Pennington's vocals were in the same belting, gospel-drenched vein as that of another Chicagoan, dance diva Loleatta Holloway.
Her two most sought-after songs are "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" and "You Are the Music Within Me," both originally released on United Artists Records around 1977. The 12" extended mixes, particularly "Twenty-Four," are high on collectors' lists.
The energetic"You Are The Music Within' Me" was originally issued as a 12"DJ promo single that was played back at the same speed of a 45 single which gave the 12" a more "hot" sound. The sound of the record as a whole can be described as almost cabaret-ish ("dadada pause dadada") with its swirling strings and bopping horns and a male chorus that sounds like it could be wearing top hats and tails, doing high kicks: "you can make my body move/there aint no more for you to do/you set me off. . . . you are the music within' me".
The maudlin ballad, "I Can't Help Feeling Guilty" is rhythmic feel has a slight resemblance to Marlena Shaw's "Go Away Little Boy".
With its chugging underbeat, Pennington's performance, superb arrangement and top-notch musicianship, "Twenty Four Hours A Day" should have been Pennington's big breakthrough. During good on Billboard's then-individualized (by city) disco charts, but faltering on the mainstream charts.
In April of 1978, Pennington's "Midnight Ride" was released by United Artist Records. The LP wasn't like some of the disco albums of the era, "Midnight Ride" had substance and variety. The catchy mid-tempo "All-Time Loser"("i really don't wanna be an all-time loser") has a bubbling percussion breakdown with patted and slapped bongos before sliding into a soft-samba interlude and returning back into the main part of the song.
The midtempo "It's So Hard Getting Over" has jazz overtones, impassioned lead vocals and a spoken word section, where Pennington says:"in life everybody goes through trials and tribulations/but I've come to realization that this eternal force that lies within me/and each and everyone of you/that all things are possible". Not your typical, hedonistic pop music.
The duo produced a track for Liberace's AVI Records on singer James Wells that wasn't a chart buster at the time of its original release, but has since become a dance classic, "My Claim To Fame". The original release was a mini-LP. "My Claim To Fame" clocks in at a whopping 16 minutes, the release is a fantastically inventive recording easily gliding from hard on four on the floor disco to soaring Bartok-esque classical string section. Wells singing with a barely contained fervor for finally finding "the one"-is the love you brought me to me my claim to fame/ since you I started loving me I've been the same". The other standout is the mellow win-a-few-lose-a-few ballad, "I Guess That Life".
Lucky both efforts are not lost to time. UK label Hot Records has issued a "Best of Barbara Pennington" (May 1997), "My Claim To Fame: The Best Of James Wells" (July 1995) and the "Midnight Ride" album.
During the eighties, Leake became more involved in the technical aspects of making a record Under the tulege of industry vet Murray Allen at Universal Recording Studios in downtown Chicago, Leake developed into an adept engineer in the field of studio and live concert recording. The legendary studio had its walls lined with gold and platinum records and was highly respected by the audio engineering community for its high technical standards. When Allen, the owner of Universal, moved to pursue other business interests, Universal was sold and dismantled, to the lament and sorrow of many musicians and engineers.
Today, Leake has his own audio engineering company, Urban Guerrilla Engineers, whose activities take him all over the world, recording both indoor and outdoor events. He also was a multi-termed president of EARS (Engineering And Recording Society of Chicago).