I was thrilled to hear a name I hadn't heard in along time announced on the air and should have known she wasn't going the way many of the "disco era" have – silently into the so-called "mature" disco night. "Yes!" I thought to myself, there IS hope for those of us thought of as left behind by disco haters!" Claudja Barry will always be remembered by me personally. I know what the day looked like (sunny), what positivity I was doing (warming and winding down from a Saturday workout), and the excitement I felt when I heard him announce and play the new song, "I Will Stand" [Donnajean Records]. Suddenly my good times and the ole (school) days flooded back to mind – a needed vacation from the stresses of today. Now if you don't know who she is, then pull up your chair to your gel screen, my reader, and let me drop some science on you about her as I know it and as she told it to me recently.
Claudja Barry became a star, slightly under the radar before every female singer who made the scene wanted to be tapped, dubbed, smoothed, rubbed, or pronounced a "diva"; as if entitled just because they have a record out in the market.
I adore track three, the Sugardip radio edit by Ean Sugarman, which most resembles her signature sound through the years. "It's also very sort of two-thousand and six" she reminds, "an updated version of the 'Sweet Dynamite sound." This is the version I recommend, radio stations. In da club, DJs will have fun with remixed versions on track two from Gadbois, number four from the original songwriters, and track six, an expansion of my favorite Sugardip on the disc.
Even Claudja's hair is the same on the CD cover of "I Will Stand" as it is on the album jacket of 1978's "Sweet Dynamite," style and all, which is a really good thing that surprised her when I pointed it out during our talk. "That IS a good thing" she said "It sort of ties-in to her new beginning but almost from the same!"
On "Down and Counting" (1986), She comments "It was a number one Dance record, unfortunately I got caught right in the middle of when Sony was coming to buy CBS [parent of the Epic label she was on] and everything was in an uproar, so Down and Counting got counted and..." or discounted slightly more than had there been label stability back then.
When I asked her what her most favorite song is that she doesn't mind performing ad nauseam, she replied "Work Me Over," because of the range vocally, and because it's a really happy song; it's kind of sexy, as well as 'Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes'."