Tom Moulton is rushing to get a package to his regular FedEx guy who keeps reminding him, “I’m double parked!” When Moulton hands over the parcel, the courier perks up, “You work for Dimitri from Paris?” “Do I WORK FOR Dimitri? You wanna come upstairs and see my gold records,” Moulton laughs. “I told Dimitri that story and he sent back a CD dedicated to the FedEx guy with a note that read, ‘Be nice to Tom. He’s one of the good guys.’” Tom Moulton is not only a good guy, he’s basically the Louis Pasteur of music mixers.

Famously credited with serendipitously pressing the first 10″ and 12″ singles on vinyl, popularizing the extended remix and being the first mixer to brand himself (and his assisting engineer Jose Rodriguez) on record sleeves, Moulton is something of a figurehead in DJ Culture. “A Tom Moulton Mix” still packs enough swagger to knock the new kids off the block with its “million dollar” production values. A former music promoter turned mixtape maker turned model, Moulton is credited with mixing some of the biggest acts and hits of the 1970s and 1980s, including the Trammps, BT Express, Grace Jones and most of the singles collected on BBE’s new Get Down with the Philly Sound compilation. Recently he’s been producing and mixing the Brand New Heavies and remixing Kings Go Forth.

As part of the special packaging, BBE is releasing “A Tom Moulton Mix” of “The Love I Lost”–on 12″ vinyl; other remixers include Francois K, Frankie Knuckles and John Morales. The original remix, reportedly long lost, has been the subject of lusty daydreams by ardent crate-diggers. “I honestly don’t know what happened to the original remix; maybe it’s in that ’secret location.’ This is an entirely new remix that I did from scratch,” Tom explains. “Dimitri asked me what I was going to do with it. I said, ‘You’ll have to wait and see!’” Then he adds, I’ll email you an mp3; tell me what you think.”

URB: I really love what you did at the end with the repetitive vocals; the finish is very smooth, curtains down…

Tom Moulton: I wanted to really focus on the “Never, never” because Teddy’s gone, he will never sing that song again, there will never be anyone like him again. I wanted a classy send-off.

URB: How involved were you in this project?

TM: After reading the liner notes, I guess I was a lot more involved with it than I thought. I never knew that the only reason Dimitri did it was because I was so involved with Philadelphia International. I didn’t know that until I read it. He never told me. He said, “Can we use some of your remixes?” He asked for “The Love I Lost,” and I said, “We’ve all looked for that thing and nobody could find it, so I’ll have to do it again.” That was so many years ago, my head’s in a different place. This mix is going to be on the 12″ vinyl that’s coming out with this.

URB: Did you have any issues with them touching your stuff?

TM: To me, Philadelphia was the best. Why move it out of town? I can’t give you a fair assessment. The minute I hear you change something, I think “Why would you change something that was so great?”

URB: Dimitri was careful to say he was doing “respectful edits”. What’s the difference between an edit and a remix?

TM: Let me explain something to you. When you take 24 tracks and you EQ them, reverb them, pan them, put an echo on them…I’d like to see anyone with just a razor blade accomplish it. Call it what it is, or don’t bother using my MIX, not EDIT, my MIX. I’m not taking someone’s mix and chopping it up, that’s an edit. Which is fine, it’s an art form in itself. When you say a mix, it’s taking raw tracks and creating a stereo mix.

URB: You’re the Sigma archivist, right?

TM: Well, that’s just because I’m the oldest one that’s still around.

URB: So is there a real archive in a secret location?

TM: Funny story, I called Gamble after the fire earlier this year and asked about it. And he said, “It’s at Iron Mountain.” So I posted it on the internet and this newspaper printed “the secret location” and I said, “Secret location?! What is this, the FBI? Everyone keeps their tapes at Iron Mountain!”

URB: People pay a lot of attention to MFSB, but I wanted to give Joe Tarsia some props, especially from your perspective.

TM: The reason I started mixing in Philly is because I liked the quality of the sound they had there. And then I realized that was all because of Joe. He was a stickler for keeping the gear in shape, the heads clean. He never rushed. He was always willing to take advantage of technology. I was there when they first got this computer. I tried it and I said, “What the hell happened?” And someone said, it’s a glitch. “What the fuck is a glitch? I never heard that.” And they said, “When it comes to computers, remember two words – SHIT HAPPENS!” People would get annoyed with this. I like it because I have more hands and it will remember what I do. I never wanted to engineer because I wanted to focus on the creative part, getting the sound right.

Moulton (3rd from left) in the disco heyday

URB: What’s the difference to you?

TM: I’m so used to working with real instruments and real sound. I know how it’s supposed to sound. How are you going to know what strings are supposed to sound like if you’ve never heard any real strings?

URB: The sound is so big too. I heard “Disco Inferno” at the deli the other day and the last 3 minutes of the long version are insane–the drums and bass are all over the place. That must’ve sounded great in the studio.

TM: And remember, I cut that down from 19 minutes. People keep hoping that’s going to come out, but it never will. Here’s how I approach mixing. This is the way it was recorded and what came out on the radio was an abortion of that. I like to start mixes slow, like a symphony. It should take you some place. With a single version, you always get an abridged version. Why shouldn’t mine sound the way it was recorded? Everybody else, that’s where the editing pros came into being.

URB: At Sigma, that was the culture, right? The extended break, the long intro, I always think of those as being Philly-specific.

TM: We always had extra tape. “Free Man” [by South Shore Commission] is a good example of that. Larry Levan once asked about something on that song and I said, “Oh, that’s on another reel somewhere. But, you have to work for that.”

URB: I read you think mixes are cut too easy now.

TM: I never thought of myself as a DJ, I made mixtapes out of frustration with the way DJs were playing. If someone really likes a song, even if it doesn’t have an intro, they will find a way to play it. But if you ask for things with intro and outro beats specifically, I think “You lazy bastard, you’re killing the soul.” If it’s all filters, where’s the song? At Sigma, you weren’t creating just a song, you were creating a feel. They tried things 8 or 9 times. And then it would lock. Each one of those guys, they’re often talking technically. When I showed up, I was watching and paying attention to the feeling, how they were interacting. And when they clicked, you knew it was magic.

URB: Teddy Pendergrass… sometimes he seems to have been overshadowed by giants like Marvin Gaye. What was it like working with him?

TM: Teddy was more church, more of a preacher. Marvin was more of a soul man, a brother type. I think if you just compare voices and not people, it’s not the whole story. I forget how young Teddy was when I met him. He was such a young kid but he had such a beautiful voice. Black people knew who he was, but white people thought he was Harold Melvin. After a while I thought it got to Teddy. I asked to mix “Don’t Leave Me This Way” but they didn’t want to push it, because contractually it was a Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes song before Teddy went solo. They said, “We don’t want a hit because we have to push Teddy.” I said, “Yeah, but someone’s gonna cover it.” They said, “It’s our song, we’ll still make the money.” I was so mad when Thelma Houston came out with her version.

URB: Earl Young…his drumming pretty much created the template for disco and house music.

TM: Earl’s style…. I love him, he was always doing these triplets, always changing the hi-hat patterns. I wound up mixing all of those Trammps records. We met when I first went down there; they thought I was crazy. Everyone’s idea was to make a record shorter and mine was completely backward, I wanted to make the record longer. I didn’t care, I wanted to do what I wanted to do. When they say “No,” I think, “Great, I have it all to myself!”

URB: What’s your “philosophy” about mixing?

TM: I always think of myself as the objective side of the producer. I’m not trying to take anything away from other mixers, but I find it’s an easy way out to record new drums. I like the challenge of making what’s given to me work. Certain people will add a trademark element. My trademark is that I make it sound like a million bucks.

URB: When I see your “A Tom Moulton Mix” tag, I expect it to sound like a million bucks.

TM: It’s not about my name. It’s about the “A” in front of it. That little “A” meant that it was a special thing, it wasn’t something that I phoned in. It’s a special mix, as special as Tom Moulton.

URB: To me, it also means there are more out there and that starts the digging process, the search for other mixes.

TM: I was inspired by Thom Bell. Whenever I saw Thom Bell’s name, I knew it was something I wanted to listen to, and that’s how I wanted people to feel when they saw my name. If something is great, you have to give it that respect. Shep Pettibone wanted to do a mix of “Doctor Love”, but he kept complaining about the time signature changing. And he said, “Tom, what did you do?” I said, “Ask the drummer.”

URB: It’s been almost 40 years since “The Love I Lost” was basically the first disco record…

TM: Forty years! Fuckin’ 40 years, listen to this shit! What’s next–”I can’t believe I’m meeting Tom Moulton. My FATHER thinks you’re God.” This conversation is over. [Laughs]. Look, I’ve doing this for years and I do it because I love it. I’m happier and busier now than I’ve ever been. To me this is heaven.

URB: If disco heaven’s your apartment, that’s OK.

TM: Well, you know what I’ve always said. “They call it Disco because dis-goes and dat stays.” Whatever you call it, it’s dance music. The longer you live, the more you realize, This is not a new thing. People have been dancing forever.

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