A Guy Called Gerald recognised with Blue Plaque

Gerald Simpson aka A Guy Called Gerald has been recognised for his services to acid house with an illustrious Blue Plaque. As one of Manchester's most influential musical pioneers, his track 'Voodoo Ray' has the accolade of being the UK's first acid house track - and the plaque will be placed at an as yet undisclosed location. First recorded at home, the track was later polished at Moonraker Studios in Manchester before being released - and prior to it's release Simpson was a member of the influential 808 State. 

A quote from his Instagram about the plaque reads: "I would like to thank my ancestor and all who support my journey."

Discussing the track with SoundonSound in 2015 (where the above image is taken from) Simpson said:

"I used to collect spoken word records... In my cutting and scratching days, they were kind of like gold dust. I used to try and do these megamix things where you'd cut in bits from obscure old movies and whatever. So if you could find movie soundtracks on vinyl, you'd be like, aw wow."

One particular record Derek & Clive (Live) by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore contained a sketch called 'Bo Diddley', which contains the line "in her sort of voodoo rage", along with Moore yelling the word "later!"... both of which became key samples in the composition of A Guy Called Gerald's track.

Here he is performing the track in 1988 live at Victoria Baths:

Here's the track:

Congratulations Gerald! 

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