Review

SYLVESTER: You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

Track Listing
01.	RADIO EDIT
02.	JEWELS AND STONE MIGHTY NU CLUB EDIT
03.	JEWELS AND STONE RADIO EDIT
04.	12 INCH ULTIMIX

Last December we celebrated his life little realising that he’d make the news a month later. Sylvester’s 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' is featured in the new movie 'Milk' starring Sean Penn, a true story of a remarkable man who lived and died for what he believed in.

Sean Penn plays Harvey Milk, an activist and politician famous for being the first openly gay guy to be elected into US public office. He was later voted on to San Francisco’s supervisors’ board in 1977, but a year later he and city mayor George Moscone were shot dead.

Sylvester’s iconic co-penned (with James Wirrick) contribution to the disco world is timeless. With Harvey Fuqua he produced this track that did away with the hard/funk dance sound, replacing it with a casual, intricate – some say "gentle" - mover, so distinctive that it could belong to no other.

Ironically, it was a song Sylvester never particularly liked, having conceived it as a gospel anthem, but as the world accepted it and him, the song became his signature tune everywhere he went. Not a lot of people know this…but… when the single’s video was filmed at The Embassy Club in London, I’m kneeling under the staircase holding steady a loose step as Sylvester, dressed in black leather, walks down it. Also two of the costume changes were outfits he stitched the day before the filming by hand or sewing machine courtesy of The Montcalm Hotel where he was staying. For the life of me, I can’t remember where he got the material from. Suffice to say, 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' represents all that’s good about disco music and was taken from the album 'Sylvester – The Original Hits.'

Sharon Davis looks back at the career of Disco Legend SYLVESTER
Words SHARON DAVIS