Remembering Darryl Pandy One Year Later

It was one year ago yesterday that we heard the news that Darryl Pandy passed away.

The question arises – and it’s a terrible question indeed – of how you remember someone after they’re gone. In the case of Darryl Pandy, there’s no debate. The records you have? The ultra-rare test pressing from 1985? That’s great, man, really great, but Darryl was a showstopper. There’s no other way to remember him than from the performances where he jumped, boogied and shook his way into music history.

Here are some live videos and original performances of Darryl from the 1980s through to just the last few years, capturing the force of nature that was Darryl Pandy live and without a net.

DJ International Records House Music Concert 1988 f. Darryl Pandy (Rotterdam) (1)

DJ International Records House Music Concert 1988 f. Darryl Pandy (Rotterdam) (2)

Darryl Pandy & Farley Jackmaster Funk: Love Can’t Turn Around (1986)

Love Can’t Turn Around – Farley Jackmaster Funk, featuring Darryl Pandy (original video)

Darryl Pandy – Animal Magnetism (Video)

(Some science from Ian Levine in the comments of the above post – maybe the first time in the history of the planet that anyone has learned anything from YouTube comments.)

Darryl Pandy – (Live 2007) Love Can’t Turn Around

Darryl Pandy Sunshine & Happiness Live at Green Dolphin Chicago

Darryl Pandy Live in Köln (Rheinterrassen) 2003

As I mentioned a year ago, there really haven’t been more than a half-dozen or so tracks that have broken through the way “Love Can’t Turn Around” did. It’s a big thing in Hollywood when an actor’s name is “top-listed” (that is, listed above even the movie’s title: think Schwarzenegger: Predator). This is the same situation in reverse: “Love Can’t Turn Around” was one of the few tracks grand enough to be repeatedly listed below an artist’s name. And would be, consistently for some 25 years.

Darryl, together with Keith Nunnally, Jamie Principle and Byron Stingily were the male voice of House Music, but Farley put it much simpler in an interview I did with him from about four years ago. To Farley, Darryl was simply “the king of all male vocalists in House Music, ever.”