Juice – Catch A Groove
Juice – Catch A Groove 1976
Talking about ‘Catching a Groove’
Bassline, horn section and a magnificent drumbreak in the middle of the song make it a banger that I love to play when the opportunity arises. In the song there are at least three parts that are sampled by many. The first is a trumpet melody directy followed by a second sample, the drumbreak. A few seconds later the drumbreak gets a 2nd bar with congo’s added. That is sample number three. Arguably there is another sample in between the drumbreaks with a guitar stroke. Together they are sampled in more than 220 tracks. Possibly more, the source whosampled.com that I use for reference is rather complete but there can always be information missing.
My idea was to buy the track on vinyl for multiple reasons. To play when I am DJ-ing with vinyl singles and to discuss when I am talking about samples on my website and my Doc OK livestreams.
Let’s go to work
The song is not released in Europe, it is almost impossble to find the single in a Dutch secondhand shop. I bought the (original) single on Discogs.
Juice – Catch A Groove, 7″ Single, M/Print, Styrene, Greedy Records Ltd. G-108, 1976 US
Bought at a Dutch trader, that must be said. After a few days the single comes in. After a good cleaning on my Okki Nokki record cleaner the single goes directly on the record player. The quality is good, you can hear some surface noise but ok, the single is from 1976. I hear the break approaching where the two samples follow each other directly. This is going to be fine.
The moment when the break should enter the music continous, so no break. Ai! It is a shorter version of the song. What a disappointment, I did not know this. The producer of the single probably thought that the song would also be alright without a break and made the length shorter to 2 minute and 46 seconds. The complete version is a normal single length: 3 minute 34 seconds, the reason of the shorter version is not clear to me.
Juice – Catch A Groove No Break single version (3 seconds before start fragment)
Now the collectors frenzy appears
“Shift immediately and buy the 12 inch” is my first thought. Because when you are so close you tend to think somewhat less rational. A repress of the maxisingle was for sale from a befriended seller. I picked it up quickly in Amsterdam. That way I could check if this is the right version.
The maxisingle freaked me out at first because the labels on the record are ‘flipped’. Where side-A is indicated it is in reality side B. The B-side is a ‘Part Two’; it continues the hit from side-A (do you still follow me) and that part does not contain the break. Luckily I found out that “Catch A Groove” was indeed on the record. Including the break. Got it!
Juice – Catch A Groove Break 12 inch version (3 seconds before start fragments)
Juice – Catch A Groove, 12″ Maxi Single, Unofficial, Greedy Records Ltd. (2) DGD 108, 2005 US
Breaks & Beats
Moreover not much later I bought a special edit 7 dated from 2017 from the ‘Breaks & Beats serie’. Length of the track is 4 minute and 1 second. This is a version that starts with the drumbreak, so it is different as the original version. I bought it for use at occasions when I play 7 inch singles. At least it does contain the breaks…
