Dexter Wansel
Related: Philadelphia - music
Life on Mars
To the dance community, Dexter Wansel is primarily known for his 1976 classic 'Life On Mars', released on PIR. The Jones Girls' seminal 'Nights Over Egypt' track was penned by Dexter, it is also Jeff Craven favourite track. 'Nights Over Egypt' is currently [mid-1999] in release by Incognito in a MAW remix
Profile
b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
This multi-talented keyboardist / arranger / producer / recording artist can be heard throughout the catalogue of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International Records.
When Dexter Wansel was 12 years old, he got the job of a gofer for the Uptown Theater in Philadelphia, going to get sandwiches and clothes out of the cleaners for the various acts that performed at the venue like Stevie Wonder and Patti Labelle.
During the Sixties, Dexter served in the Vietnam War, an experience that he says has left him with a fear of bullets, unsurprisingly.
Many years later, Wansel would co-write a number one R & B hit for Labelle.
In 1975, Wansel met Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff when he was a member of a band called Yellow Sunshine, which also featured guitarist Roland Chambers who would later become a part of MFSB, the house band for Gamble & Huff’s Philadelphia International Records.
The Yellow Sunshine sessions led to session work, at Philadelphia, with the group The Ebony's. --http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Dexter%20Wansel.html [Mar 2006]