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Tom Moulton is hailed as the originator of the remix, the Disco mix, and the 12" single among other innovations - all of which were hugely vital to the evolution of dance music as we know it today. He is said to have remixed 4000 (yes, four thousand) records, starting in the early 1970s by splicing together tapes of different parts of songs to extend certain passages like the breaks, and finding the hook and making it go on and on. The first of these were the BT Express songs "Do It Til You're Satisfied" and "Peace Pipe."
Moulton also seems to have quite the myth build up around him as well, since he started his music career working in promotions at the King Records label (home to James Brown among many others), and at the same time he was also a model, which he kept up in parallel to the music side of his life. There is also some contention amongst disco historians (that sounds like quite a job, right?) as to the validity of some of his claims, which fueled a number of rivalries amongst other disco producers.
This song, a disco classic, is a great example of Moulton's work - the extended intro and extended break, and his taste for finding the perfect hook (that features a now pop-magic-classic loop used by Len in "Steal My Sunshine") - and the song is available on this new compilation called A Tom Moulton Mix (the phrase which appears on all of the records he worked on), lovingly assembled by the stalwart collectors at London's Soul Jazz Records. The compilation features two CDs worth of his remixes, most of which are promo-versions of records never commercially released, including some great early work on funky-soul records by Al and Don Downing, MFSB's "Love Is The Message," Grace Jones' "La Vie En Rose" and a handful of others. The booklet in the package is full of information on Moulton and his career, and features words of wisdom and praise by DJs and disco-fanatics François K, Danny Krivit, and Dimitri From Paris.
If you have any interest, and I mean any, in Disco, and in the history of dance music, this is worth your owning. Purchase it from Forced Exposure or Amazon, or direct from Soul Jazz if you're in the UK. It is available on double CD, or on two separate double-12" vinyl packages for you deejays out there.
If you're interested in learning more about Moulton, there are lots of sites out there about him, like this one, and there are a few books out there that chronicle the history of dance music that you can learn a lot from, like Love Saves The Day and Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.