Life on Mars//What the World Is Coming to [Import]

Product Description
Re-issue 2 on 1 album from the Philadelphia label vaults. Dexter was the PIR first division writer / producer and arranger performing this multi-role for all the label's top artists inc O'Jays, Billy Paul and Patti Labelle. This CD contains his first 2 solo albums from 1976 and 1977. Demon. 2005.

Life on Mars//What the World Is Coming to,Dexter Wansel,Edsel,R&B/Soul,Soul/R & B

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Average customer rating: Dexters Smooth Soul Two Reissued Classics

Life on Mars/What the World Is Coming To Dexter Wansel Manufacturer: Edsel ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | R&B | Styles | Music General | Soul | R&B | Styles | Music General | Funk | R&B | Styles | Music R&B | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: Voyager/Time Is Slipping Away The Best of Michael Henderson Best of Norman Connors 'Nard When I Find You Love/Sweet and Wonderful ASIN: B0009B0H6C Release Date: 2005-06-06

Tracks:

1. Prophet Named K.G.
2. Life On Mars
3. Together Once Again
4. Stargazer
5. One Million Miles From The Ground
6. You Can Be What You Wanna Be
7. Theme From The Planets
8. Rings Of Saturn
9. First Light Of The Morning
10. Dance With Me Tonight
11. Holdin' On
12. Ode Infinitum
13. Disco Lights
14. What The World Is Coming To
15. Going Back To Kingston Town
16. Dreams Of Tomorrow
17. Prelude #1

Album Description

Re-issue 2 on 1 album from the Philadelphia label vaults. Dexter was the PIR first division writer / producer and arranger performing this multi-role for all the label's top artists inc O'Jays, Billy Paul and Patti Labelle. This CD contains his first 2 solo albums from 1976 and 1977. Demon. 2005.

Album Details

Digitally Remastered Edition that Combines the Tracks of Two Original LPs by the Famed Gamble and Huff Keyboardist and Arranger on to a Single Compact Disc.

Customer Reviews:

Dexters Smooth Soul.......2006-11-04

One Million Miles from the Ground. That track was the main reason for this purchase. Once upon a time,urban/college radio stations played this track with the idea that their audience could and would appreciate GOOD music. But alas, the times have taken us to the musical point of artist mediocracy offering us; Non-identifiable voices over re-hashed tunes from the not too distant past.
This gathering of songs by Dexter and the gang was refreshing when releasted and can hold it's own to this day.

Two Reissued Classics.......2006-07-31

I had Purchased a two cd set containing all 4 of Dexter Wansel's
albums. I did not care for "Voyager" and totally hated "Time is Slipping Away". When I saw this cd offered, I jumped. Now I have the very best including 1991's "Universe."

Average customer rating: Hits are great; misses are so-so. relayer Need a Copy!!!! Pure 70s fusion funk-jazz, but watch out... Interplanetary Philly Soul Beauties

Life on Mars/What the World Is Coming To Dexter Wansel Manufacturer: Westside UK ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | R&B | Styles | Music General | Soul | R&B | Styles | Music General | Funk | R&B | Styles | Music General | Rock | Styles | Music Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Indie Music | Stores | Music General | R&B | Indie Music | Stores | Music R&B | Imports | Stores | Music ASIN: B0000258UU Release Date: 2000-02-08

Tracks:

1. A Prophet Named K.G.
2. Life On Mars
3. Together Once Again
4. Stargazer
5. One Million Miles From The Ground
6. You Can Be What You Wanna Be
7. Theme From The Planets
8. Rings Of Saturn
9. First Light In The Morning
10. Dance With Me Tonight
11. Holdin' On
12. Ode Infinitum
13. Disco Lights
14. What The World Is Coming To
15. Going Back To Kingston Town
16. Dreams Of Tomorrow
17. Prelude #1

Album Description

Budget-priced release featuring two of the soul keyboardist's original LPs for the Philadelphia International label together on one CD, his 1976 debut 'Life On Mars' & 1977's 'What The World Is Coming To', Wansel's second record. Features a new sleeve design, notes by Philly expert Ralph Tee. Each album features one vocal track from Jean Carn & Terri Wells. A combined total of 17 tracks, all digitally remastered. Also features the original cover art of both records. 1999 release.

Customer Reviews:

Hits are great; misses are so-so........2005-12-08

I was lucky enough to chase down the 2005 import rerelease of this album. I came for "Life on Mars," the title track of the first album, a wonderful, indeed spacy tune from a period when the Disco Infestation was spreading into the once-hallowed halls of jazz. There is a single rotating drum-beat, but what a beat it is. Backup voices and sax come long too, creating an optimistic 'universe is yours!' sort of vibe. When Man touches down on Mars, it would feel good to hear this song in radio rotation.
The track afterwards, "Together Once Again," gave me the strangest goosebumps! The lyrics weren't the greatest, but the stratospheric, occasionally exaggerated singing of Terri Welles combined with all those synthesizers gave me the sensation of a soul concert in a helium-breathing future alien world. Considering D. Wansel's objective for the album (the outer space craze of the late Seventies, disco-fied), its very effective.

As Funkadelic once sang, "that one beat up and down, it just won't do." And indeed, somewhere in the middle of the second album (tracks 9-17), I got exhausted by the generic disco looping. I can't tell you what the album sounds like from "Disco Lights" on down 'cause I just got bored with it. Liner notes on the '05 version lament why "What the World Is Coming To" album was not a success. I'll tell you why - it was just barely distinguishable from the rest of the disco released at the time.
Ah, well, I'm glad I purchased Mr. Wansel's wares - the four or five hits he has for me are worth the price of the album. "Life on Mars" truly stands with "Doctor Buzzard's Original Savannah Band" as a sadly forgotten piece of gold in a crap era.

relayer.......2005-07-01

thanks to amazon.com i was reunited with an old friend.
I love dexter's tunes and the ability to shop the world with
amazon.com - long live the 70's

Need a Copy!!!!.......2004-02-10

I have searched high & low for this Album, & I can't find it!!!
I even went back home to Philly to try to get a copy..I ordered it through Borders & kept getting something else.. Needed it by Valentine's Day..

If anyone knows how I can purchase "Life on Mars"/What the World is Coming To, then please let me know..
Thanks

Pure 70s fusion funk-jazz, but watch out..........2002-05-22

I don't recommend this artist to people looking to get into jazz very often, at least not right off the bat. I love Dexter Wansel's playing and his ideas and compositional skills have always intrigued me, but I know that some of the tracks can come off dated at this point (some of them are frighteningly disco era pure) and if you get the wrong record first, you'll never give him his fair shot.

That said, if you're going to mess around with Wansel at all, this is the CD to do it on, but mostly for the "Life on Mars" record. That record has a classic or three (#2 and 3 most notably), and the rest of it is still pretty groundbreaking stuff for its time. Wansel not only put himself out there on the fusion front, but used synthesizers in a way that was only being experimented with on other artistic fronts. Parts of this record come off like old school electronica (before it became mostly trite), but not in a way that would turn you off. he walked a real tightwire on that "Life..." record, and anyone who's into 70s era jazz - or just interested in the development of modern music - should pick it up. It's funky, jazzy and trippy all at once.

The second record on this disc is an attempt at everything I just said above, but less so. Get the disc for the first half...it's still worth it.

Interplanetary Philly Soul Beauties.......2000-10-11

I was working at Odyssey Records in Berkeley in spring 1977 when my friend and co-worker, Tina, put a new disc on the house sound system. The mellow synthesized sounds and relentess backbeat mesmerized us, and Dexter Wansel's "What the World Is Coming To" became a personal favorite to each of us, especially the ethereal title song and hopeful "Dreams of Tomorrow" with Jean Carn. We were also captivated by the eclecticism Wansel demonstrated on this LP, from total mood pieces ("First Light in the Morning") to disco ("Dance With Me" and "Disco Lights" both found homes in clubs from the Ice Palace in NYC to The City in San Francisco) to reggae ("Going Back to Kingston Town"). Sometime later, stocking the shelves, we discovered Dexter Wansel had a previous LP, "Life on Mars," which we immediately slapped on the Odyssey turntable and promptly went into heavy in-store rotation. This recording was cohesive thematically and musically, exploring outer space through jazz-fusion in dreamy cuts like "One Million Miles from the Ground," "Themes from the Planets" and "Rings of Saturn." This would have made an excellent addition to the "Mission to Mars" soundtrack. Dexter Wansel went on to produce and write for The Jones Girls, Lou Rawls, Dee Dee Sharp Gamble and most of the Philadelphia International stable and released two more LPs; Tina and I went to work at the phone company for awhile and left Odyssey Records behind. Dexter Wansel retained a special place in our musical hearts and to my delight, Westside has now issued both Wansel LPs on one CD. Now that I can listen to Dexter anytime I feel like it, I've got to wonder" "Where's Tina at?

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