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Ian Curtis’ favorite reggae song, ‘Turn The Heater On’
04.07.2016
07:17 am
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One of Keith Hudson’s nicknames was “the Ghetto Dentist,” because—unlike, let’s say, Suge Knight—he funded his Inbidimts label and shop (a/k/a Imbidimts) by filling teeth. Hudson died in 1984, but an impression of his basic decency remains. Dennis Alcapone, who made his first recordings with Hudson and remembers him as “a nice bredda who try ‘im bes’ to point you in a right direction,” says Hudson didn’t just give him a break in the record business, but set the DJ up with his first bank account and “a wicked tuxedo outfit” to wear on stage, too.

Caps and crowns also paid for Hudson-produced singles by Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, U-Roy, Big Youth, Alton Ellis, and Augustus Pablo, and, before Virgin signed him, much of Hudson’s own formidable solo discography. His Pick A Dub is Jon Savage’s choice for “the greatest dub album ever.” The first track on side two of Hudson’s 1975 LP Torch of Freedom was reportedly the favorite song of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, whose bereaved bandmates recorded their own chilly version of “Turn The Heater On” during a Peel session two years after Curtis’ suicide.
 

 
In her memoir Touching From a Distance, Curtis’ widow Deborah writes that the singer immersed himself in reggae in 1975, after the newlyweds moved in with Curtis’ grandparents in Hulme:

Ian always had an interest in reggae music; Bob Marley and Toots and the Maytals already figured in his diverse record collection. Moving into that area of Manchester gave Ian the opportunity to throw himself into the local culture. He began to spend much of his time in a record shop in Moss Side shopping centre, listening to different reggae bands - although, as our cheap record player was packed away ready to move to the new house, he spent very little money there. Once again Ian became obsessed with a lifestyle different from his own. He began to infiltrate the places where white people didn’t usually go. He took me to the Mayflower in Belle Vue, which at best was a seedy version of the Cotton Club and at worst a place where they held tawdry wrestling matches.

But when the Curtises got their own place in Chadderton, actually turning the heater on was something you could count on Ian Curtis never to do:

It didn’t take long to realize that married life was not going to be as comfortable as we had expected. We had very little spare cash for socializing and trying to keep the heating bills to a minimum meant that only the living room was warm. There were storage heaters in the house, but Ian refused to use them; in fact he disconnected one of them and lugged it into the back yard. The only thing he didn’t economize on were cigarettes.

After the jump, hear Hudson’s upful original and New Order’s somewhat more dour take on “Turn The Heater On”...

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.07.2016
07:17 am
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