I've loved the soulful vibes of Jazz Funk & Soul from my early teens in the mid 70's. I recall the days that my eldest sister "Kay" would play tunes like Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Jacksons on our parents old Gramophone. We couldn't wait till our parents went out so we could blast these tunes out in our East End home.

Then a few years later my older brother "Jas" got into the soul music of the late 70's  and he began to influence me with his 12" vinyl tunes ... Listed among these were Cerrone, Brass Construction, War, George Benson, Chic and Cameo. He was a bit of a dancer too so I soon learned how to boogie with the best.

At the age of 14 the George Benson album "In Flight" finally got me hooked on the Jazz-Funk tunes I love to play with a passion to this day. As fate would have it, I started work on a market stall at weekends opposite a record stall that specialised in Japanese Jazz-Funk (the in thing in those days). I started to save my pennies and spent them all on records .... this is where the "collection" began.

The earliest tunes I can remember buying were: Dave Grusin, Casiopea, Level 42, Sado Watanabee, Incognito (yes .. they've been around that long !) Hiroshi Fukumara, Bob James and Azymuth.

Word soon got around that I had a good collection of music and I was then constantly being asked to play music at house parties..... and I loved it ! Listening to my records loud was the only thing I ever wanted to do ! Then in the early 80's my friends and I had some years of following our favourite DJ's : George Power (Crackers) Robbie Vincent (Caister & Flicks) and Tom Holland (Lacy Ladys) ... we just loved to boogie to their tunes. We had many great nights in the clubs around London for years until the DJ's we followed slowly got old and started to disappear. We found we suddenly had nowhere to go ! ... a group of us then decided to hold our own club nights ... "Sneakers 54" was born ... we named ourselves after the great Jazz-Funk tune by Sea Level .... we haven't stopped partying since !

Join me for my regular show on www.jsfr.co.uk  "The Sneakers 54 Collection"  It'll be great to have your company !