Some records you buy for the music and some you buy because you already know exactly where they go in a set. I picked up this copy of In One Go! second-hand, and the reason was simple: “Just Be Good to Me” is one of the records I keep coming back to when I DJ, and here it sits at the end of a run of S.O.S. Band tracks put together for the floor. It is not a rarity and it is not an original album, but it is a very good snapshot of what Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis did for an Atlanta band on Clarence Avant’s Tabu label in the 1980s.
What In One Go! actually is
In One Go! is a compilation, issued in Europe through CBS’s Dance Pool imprint alongside the Tabu logo. The back sleeve describes every track as a “special version” taken from the band’s albums, with six tracks on each side and a big “1” and “2” printed behind the track lists. Discographies date it to 1989, the year the band’s Tabu/CBS era was winding down with Diamonds in the Raw.
The sleeve is honest about where everything comes from, which makes it a useful map of the band’s catalogue:
- Side one: “Tell Me If You Still Care” and “Just Be Good to Me” (from On the Rise), “Even When You Sleep” and “Borrowed Love” (from Sands of Time), “No One’s Gonna Love You” and “Just the Way You Like It” (from Just the Way You Like It).
- Side two: “High Hopes” and “Groovin’ (That’s What We’re Doin’)” (from S.O.S. III), “The Finest” and “No Lies” (from Sands of Time), “Take Your Time (Do It Right)” (from the debut S.O.S.) and “Weekend Girl” (from Just the Way You Like It).
Side one is entirely written and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Side two widens the frame: “Groovin'” was produced by Ricky Sylvers and Gene Dozier, and “Take Your Time (Do It Right)” is the 1980 Sigidi production that first made the band’s name.
From “Take Your Time” to Jam and Lewis
The S.O.S. Band came out of Atlanta and signed to Tabu, the label run by Clarence Avant. Their first single, “Take Your Time (Do It Right)”, produced by Sigidi Abdullah, was a huge 1980 hit, and the debut album went gold. The next two records sold far less, and by the time of S.O.S. III in 1982 the band had already met two young writers from Minneapolis, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who contributed “High Hopes”.
In 1983 Jam and Lewis went to Atlanta to produce tracks for the fourth album, On the Rise. At the time they were still playing in The Time, Prince’s side band. A snowstorm in Atlanta grounded their flight, they missed a Time show, and Prince fired them. The session they had been working on produced “Just Be Good to Me”, released by Tabu in 1983, and the split turned out to be the start of one of the most successful production partnerships in R&B.
Why “Just Be Good to Me” still works
The beat is a Roland TR-808, and Jam and Lewis have said they deliberately reached for it instead of the drum machine associated with Prince’s records. The result is spare and spacious under Mary Davis’s lead vocal, which carries all the warmth the drum machine does not. That contrast between a machine groove and a very human voice is the Tabu years in one record.
It is a record I play when I DJ, and more than forty years on it still sounds modern next to the house and R&B it helped to shape.
The rest of the Jam and Lewis run
After On the Rise, Jam and Lewis produced Just the Way You Like It (1984) and Sands of Time (1986), and both are well represented here. “Tell Me If You Still Care” is the ballad from the On the Rise sessions, “No One’s Gonna Love You” was Jimmy Jam’s own favourite of their S.O.S. Band songs, and “The Finest” from Sands of Time was one of the band’s biggest late hits. Mary Davis left the group in late 1986, which is why the Jam and Lewis era is usually treated as the band’s peak.
Should you buy In One Go!?
If you want the original albums, On the Rise and Sands of Time are the ones to start with, and the Tabu catalogue has been reissued on CD and vinyl in expanded editions. In One Go! is something else: a European dance compilation of special versions. Copies turn up second-hand, mine included, and it is a practical way to have the key S.O.S. Band tracks on one record. Check the condition of the vinyl rather than the sleeve; our vinyl grading guide explains what to look for.
In One Go! FAQ
Is In One Go! a studio album?
No. It is a compilation of “special versions” of S.O.S. Band tracks, issued in Europe by CBS Dance Pool and Tabu. Discographies list it as a 1989 release.
Who produced “Just Be Good to Me”?
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis wrote and produced it for the band’s 1983 album On the Rise, released on Tabu.
What drum machine is on “Just Be Good to Me”?
A Roland TR-808, which became part of the band’s signature sound during the Jam and Lewis years.