Blue-eyed soul

I didn’t buy Blue-Eyed Soul because I was chasing disco. I bought it because it looked like something that didn’t quite belong. Most of my mid-1970s records leant one way or another: pop, folk, rock, soul. This one sat slightly apart. The name itself was curiously Asian: The Biddu Orchestra.

Behind it was Biddu Appaiah, who had come to England in the late 1960s and spent years trying to make something happen. His turning point came in 1974 with Kung Fu Fighting, recorded by Carl Douglas. It was meant to be a B-side of a 45 but it turned out be a hit instead. With Bruce Lee ruling the screens, Kung Fu Fighting ruled the airwaves. Biddu had arrived.

When I played my copy of Blue-Eyed Soul, what I noticed was how clean the sound was.  The rhythm was steady, The strings didn’t swirl wildly; they arrive on cue. The brass didn’t compete; it supported the music. It felt assembled rather than jammed.

Summer of ’42, drawn from Michel Legrand’s film theme, could easily have tipped into novelty. Instead it was an elegant arrangement. Aranjuez Mon Amour, adapted from Joaquín Rodrigo, was something similar. Biddu took something formal and gave it a pulse without turning it into parody. Even Exodus followed that same path. He took a melody people already knew and let it move.

The title track, Blue Eyed Soul, summed up the mood. It wasn’t gritty soul in the American sense. It was smoother and more polished, more British. And that’s what this record really was: a producer’s idea of how disco should be. The Orchestra wasn’t a touring band. It was top-tier musicians brought together to realise one man’s arrangements. The producer as the central figure who shaped the sound, deciding the tone, setting the pace.

Which perhaps explains why the record felt different even then. It wasn’t chasing the disco wave. It was constructing its own version of it.

Addendum: In fact, Biddu was quietly helping to shape the early sound of British disco even before the genre fully exploded in the United States. After the success of Kung Fu Fighting with Carl Douglas, he developed a studio style built on tight arrangements, polished strings and disciplined rhythm sections, using top session musicians rather than a touring band. The emphasis was on precision rather than improvisation, with the producer firmly directing the sound. In that sense, records like Blue-Eyed Soul reflected an early shift toward the modern idea of the producer as the central creative force behind the music.

Side 1: Blue-eyed soul, Black magic man, Aranjuez mon amour, Joy-ice, Northern dancer

Side 2: Summer of 42, Couldn't we be friends (song for Su), Exodus, You don't stand a chance if you can't dance