Henry Stone Music

The Story Behind Latimore’s “Move and Groove Together” on Orange Is The New Black

benny latimore early years

bennylatimore

“Hey, this is Henry Stone. A few years before TK Disco, I took Benny Latimore aka Latimore to Bobby Dukoff’s studio in South Miami and cut a record called “Move and Groove Together.”

Last week, the premier episode of the new hit show “Orange Is The New Black” on Netflix featured the song during a sexy lesbian love scene. Here is the true story behind recording it.

Bobby Dukoff was known for saxophone playing. It was circa 1968. I didn’t have my studio set up yet at TK so I took Lat down to this studio not too far south from Specs Music Store by the University of Miami. We used to record there quite a bit in the 60s. I did a lot of recording there on Steve Alaimo, stuff like “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” on my Alarm label.

Dukoff’s was the only studio in town. Criteria wasn’t in business yet. And The Armory, where I cut the first version of “The Twist” with Hank Ballard and engineer Mack Emerman wasn’t a real studio. This was a regular studio.

So, “Move and Groove Together” was sung by Latimore around 1968, maybe 67′, 66′, 65′, I’m 90 years old, it was somewhere around that time. The song was written by Johnny Nash, an artist whose music I always loved. It came out on Dade Records as a 45. Down here in South Florida Latimore always sold well and that was it, until I had my Glades label under TK where he had a few million sellers like “Let’s Straighten It Out,” and a big seller, “Stormy Monday.” But at the time it was very localized.

So then, in about 2005 we digitized that vinyl and re-released it on a cd and put it on iTunes. We put out an album called “The Legendary Henry Stone Presents Latimore The Early Years.”

Dade, the label we originally released it on is the label that had “Mashed Potatoes.” That was a big national hit we had with Nat Kendrick and the Swans, which was the original James Brown band.

Through our internal efforts alongside Garret Morris of Fine Gold Music, who is one of our catalog representatives, we got the placement for “Move and Groove Together.” Garret heard the song and pitched it to the show and they thought it was a perfect fit for their premier episode.

Netflix and their original productions and their form of internet distribution are the future of entertainment. And as always, here we are in it, up to the minute and in it. Workin’ with Netflix, that’s how we roll. We see the future and we wanna participate.

One of the best parts of the whole thing is the song is so great. Hey, Joe cut me a single just so I can groove to it.

Roach Thompson was the guitar player on it. Just listen to it, so great, man. 1968, wow that was what 45 years ago? I just thought it was a great r&b song. We released it and got it on the air in Miami.

And now look where it is.

All the efforts that we’ve made in the past year to get synchronized placements on tv shows, movies, video games, we do that to keep the music alive, and also because it drives sales. This is the new music business, and we are in it to win it.

But you can’t recreate that sound. It happened in that time, and we luckily got it on tape. And now, we’re passing it on to the digital generation.”

 

©Jacob Katel and Henry Stone Music USA Inc. All Rights Reserved

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