Dwight “Sporty Cat” Sykes :: “Songs Volume One and Two” - Peoples Potential Unlimited
Born in the mid-1950s in Nettleton, Mississippi, a tiny town in the city of Lee and Monroe County, Dwight “Sporty Cat” Sykes began his epic entry into the intergalactic melody and planetary poetics at just the age of nine while politely participating as a backing vocalist in a spiritual group in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he eventually relocated with his family in the years priors, called the Airs of Harmony, Jr., formerly known as the Michigan Nightingales. Moving on to guitar in the years to follow, Sykes’ fundamental focus and overall approach to sound began to change forever when he joined his very first R&B band, The Kenyatahs, at the age of thirteen, where he remained for the entirety of his teenage years before enlisting in the U.S. Army during the Soviet-Afghan War at the end of the Vietnam War and the untimely passing of his mother. After being honorably discharged and spending nearly two years touring various places, phases, and pathways all across Germany with his international outfit 100% Pure Poison, Sykes returned to the States, where he aggressively kept active in many local bands such as Domain and Chaos before officially deciding to step out as a solo musician for the very first time, a dream he had eagerly possessed and harbored with hopefulness since first starting on his atmospheric exploration into the hidden textures and bombastic beats of his yet to be untapped brilliance. Launching his first outfit entirely on his own, Sykes formed Jahari with neighboring friends Curtis Edwards Ray, Darryl A. Mosley, and Thomas Marvin Hicks and released the subliminal “Situations” single in 1984 with a fairly quick follow-up, between extensive local touring, “You That I Need,” which originally appeared on “Songs Volume One,” in 1987 before branching out into the exciting ether of total bliss and autonomy.
Ganging some mild momentum on Michigan’s local stations like WKMI, WQXC, WRDR, WKZO, and WKDS, his brief run-in and casual shoulder brushing with momentary success and radio appeal only fueled the fluidity of his growing music muscle. Sykes captured the true electrifying essence of something musically majestic, magical, and way ahead of its time with the early 1980s masterpiece collection of “Songs Volume 1” and “Songs Volume 2 - On The Rocks”. Recorded no more than a couple of years apart, these recordings act as sonic siblings as Sykes transports his listeners into the early eternities of hip-hop, urban universalism, and fractured rhythms that breathe this almost asymmetrical air from the lungs of a trailblazing titan at the humbling beginnings of something vastly unique. With the early entries of home-recording legends like Daniel Johnston and Lou Barlow, Arizona tricksters the Sun City Girls, and countless other sonic investigators, Sykes was poetically pouring into this otherworldly well with his bottomless investments in ideology, feverish feeling, and the oscillating organics of the growing DIY culture just around the corner. “Songs Volume 1 and 2” stand as a tonal testament to the rising interest and political practice of self-made art in a way that previous generations could only fathom as reel-to-reel, tape, and other various analog instruments began playing a monumental role in the creative process of a whole new era of wondering youth.
Both albums of eternally endless conversation between rhythmic relics and psychedelic pop host this receptively raw form of multi-layered storytelling through the viscerally vintage vaults of the musician’s grounded mind in the subject of song structure. With tracks like “That's The Way Love Is,” “Where Ever You Are,” “Togetherness,” “Hypnotized,” and the magnum opus classic “In The Life Zone,” all morphing into a melodic mirage of dizzy soundscapes and jostling jams makes for the collections retro appeal and overall atmospheric allure. Now residing near Atlanta, Georgia, where his ongoing voyage in volume and vibration continues, Sykes has practically perfected his process, and with the reissues from DC-based archive label Peoples Potential Unlimited, which are long overdue for another pressing, of his catalog from solo to his time with Jahari, the musician has secured his kept his digitized dream alive with the ever-expanding presence of world-renowned playlists, DJ plays and the dynamite reaction of a whole new generation of listeners, Sykes music is as concrete as the juxtaposition jungles from which it came. Let’s hope anyone reading this will also lend an eager ear as time continues to fade into melodic memory with each passing day.
