Kevin Saunderson and Inner City
If you go to YouTube and look up Inner City’s performance of their 1988 hit Good Life on Top of the Pops you’ll see singer Paris Grey, two men wielding grins and keytars and, way in the background, a modest man in a white sweater doing his best to pretend to play keyboards. This is Kevin Saunderson: Detroit techno pioneer, Inner City founder and very reluctant pop star.
“It was very odd,” he says today, smiling. “I didn’t care about being the face of this group. I just wanted to make music and DJ but because of the success they said this is what you gotta do. It might take me eight hours to play the perfect bassline in the studio. I’m not a trained musician so it definitely felt funny to be on shows like that where you have to mime.”
This year Kevin, Paris and co-writer Ann Saunderson release Future, their first entirely new material since taking a break in 1996. It’s a welcome return for a group that combined the tough, futuristic grooves of the Detroit scene with the vocal energy of R&B and gospel and helped to define the period in which house and techno moved from underground phenomena to Top 10 material, paving the way for hundreds of dance hits to come. But when Saunderson made Good Life and its predecessor Big Fun crossover success was the last thing on his mind. “I just wanted to make tracks I could play in the club,” he says. “I didn’t even see the pop side.”
Born in Brooklyn in 1964, Saunderson moved to the picturesque Detroit suburb of Belleville when he was nine. At high school he befriended Juan Atkins and Derrick May, who shared a love of the eclectic post-disco playlists of Detroit radio DJ Charles “The Electrifying Mojo” Johnson. This was the so-called “Belleville Three” who would later be credited with inventing techno.
In his first year at East Michigan University, where he studied telecommunications he gave up football to become a DJ himself. The trio set up their own Detroit club, the fabled Music Institute. Inspired by his friends’ ventures into record-making, Saunderson bought some basic equipment and made his own debut in 1987 with The Sound. “I just had a good ear and a good heart for music,” he says. “Juan Atkins led me into DJing which led me into making extra beats to play in my set. Then I started learning how to play basslines, putting a lot of work in, just elevating it from there. If I couldn’t play something I could hum it to someone.”
A friend of his, Terry “Housemaster” Baldwin, had just made a single with a singer called Paris Grey, Don’t Lead Me and introduced the pair to each other. He asked her to work on an instrumental track he’d written. “Kevin sent me a cassette tape of a music line he wanted vocals for,” remembers Paris. “I wrote the words and melody of Big Fun in 20 minutes. It was Kevin's birthday, I flew to Detroit and recorded Big Fun within an hour. It was like, hello, nice to meet you, farewell. At the time I thought of it as nothing more than a vocal track recording with a DJ. I was wrong about that big time.”
Influenced by Paris’s church-going upbringing, Big Fun and Good Life echoed the utopian uplift of Chicago house records like Sterling Void’s It’s All Right (later covered by the Pet Shop Boys) and Joe Smooth Inc’s Promised Land, but vocal tracks were new to the Detroit scene. Paris’s contribution turned these club tracks into pop records, and they took off immediately, changing the duo’s life.
On a trip to London at around the same time, Saunderson also met Ann Nanton, a young singer from Birmingham who became not just his wife but songwriter and backing vocalist with Inner City. “I remember going to the club Spectrum in London for the very first time and seeing the whole place erupt with cheers when Big Fun came on,” says Ann. “It was amazing to see.”
Within months Inner City were in a completely different environment. “The real challenge was becoming more comfortable with doing high-level stadium shows. We did Wembley Stadium with Debbie Gibson and stuff like that. We went on tour with SOS Band and Kool and the Gang. The record company here was pretty cool. America was kinda screwed up. They’re like: You gotta make music for black radio. Well I just want to make music. I don’t go out to make a style of music.” Says Paris: “It was such a great adventure for someone who at that point had never travelled farther than a family trip to Disney World.”
Inner City had five UK top 20 singles (four of which also topped the US dance charts) from their 1989 debut Paradise. On subsequent albums Fire (1990), Praise (1992) and Testament 93 (1993) they evolved their sound, making it subtler and more soulful. Less chart-friendly too, not that it bothered Saunderson. “My favourite track that I ever created was Till We Meet Again. It wasn’t four-on-the-floor like Big Fun and Good Life. I had a different kind of inspiration. My focus was on what comes out of here,” he says pointing to his chest, “and not being stuck on trying to be like the hits.”
1993 saw the trio sign to Birmingham label 6x6. They released a string of singles including the underground classic "Share My Life". In 1995 they released "Hiatus", followed up by the single "Your Love" and "Do Me Right" was released in 1996. By this time Paris wanted to concentrate on raising her young daughter and Kevin and Ann also had a young family so they decided to focus on raising their children. The group therefore decided to take a break for a while.
In 1999, whilst they were on their break, Kevin decided that they should do a re-record of "Good Life". However, they wanted to do a re-record with a twist, so they hit upon the idea of doing it in English and Spanish [hence the re-titled "Good Life (Buena Vida)”]. The new version was released on PIAS and went on to sell over 100,000 copies. It was followed up by the critically acclaimed track "Good Love". The band then went on a 10 year hiatus. Paris focused on raising her daughter, Kevin focused on his DJing and Ann continued to write, co writing with bands such as Slam, Octave One and Donatella Movement, to name but a few.
Saunderson still lives in the Detroit area. After several years DJing and coaching a youth baseball team, he’s looking forward to a relaxed reunion with Paris and Ann. “It’s just important to make music and if we love what we make we want to release it. If people want us to perform we’ll perform. Keep it easy. But it’s important to remind people that vocals and melodies should be a part of dance music. There’s still a lot of voice left in Paris – a lot of talent.”
Whatever happens next, those early songs still sound as fresh and joyous as they did back in 1988. “They talk of a journey from one destination to another,” says Paris. “The positivity is timeless.”
“Paris and I have always endeavoured to say something in our songs,” Ann agrees. “Yes we make them memorable, but we also evoke meaning, passion and feeling. We make songs from the heart.”
“They still have such an impact today,” Kevin says fondly. “These songs will go on after I’m long gone.”
