Bobby Orlando (aka. Bobby ‘O’) is a legendary New York disco producer from the early ’80s. His biggest solo hit, “She Has A Way”, was released in 1982 and was prominently featured on the renowned 2ManyDJs mix album As Heard on Radio Soulwax pt.2. More of Orlando’s skills can be heard in the Hi-NRG discohits he produced for artists like Divine (Native Love, Shoot Your Shot) and The Flirts (Passion, Danger). Orlando’s success started with “Desire”, which he produced for Roni Griffith. Griffith had massive European success with the song.
Most notably however is Orlando’s production of West End Girls for The Pet Shop Boys, the original of which still exists on The Best of O Records Vol. 2. Well, The Pet Shop Boys decided not to release this hit record through Orlando’s company O Records. They took the song and ran off to another record company. ILMiXor writes in his blog: “The Pet Shop Boys, they steal the song and move to another record label, leaving their producer without a penny for his song. Which made Bobby very angry, indeed. So angry, in fact, that he basically shut down shop, went to law school, passed the NYS Bar, and sued the Pet Shop Boys himself in a rather Kill Bill-level of vengeance obsession.”
Orlando’s samples appear every now and then in discotech tracks from the eighties onwards. From the end of the nineties and onwards Orlando’s work has received great interest from the electroclash scene. Artists such as Felix da Housecat, Oxia & The Hacker, Ural 13 Diktators and I-F have all sampled him.
In 2010, Orlando returned to music with his album release titled, “Bright Nothing World.” It is avaliable through online music retailers such as Amazon.com and CDbaby.com |
