Every record on this blog passed through a stage nobody sees: mastering, the final transfer from studio tape to the actual groove a needle rides. It is the least glamorous job in the chain and one of the most decisive. Two very different careers, one in New York, one in Los Angeles, show just how much that invisible last step shaped the sound of 80s funk and boogie.
Frankford/Wayne and the Dead Wax Signature
Herb Powers Jr. joined Frankford/Wayne Mastering Labs in New York in 1976, a former club DJ who talked his way into learning how to cut lacquers. Over the next decade he became the engineer of choice for a huge share of New York's club and dance labels, cutting a large part of the catalogues of both Prelude Records and West End Records, along with disco, early house, and hip-hop records well into the following decade.
Powers is remembered as much for a habit as for his engineering. Starting around 1977, he began carving a small signature into the dead wax, the blank runout groove at the end of a record, spelling out "Herbie Jr." alongside a hand drawn smiley face, freehand, with what he described as a tool that looked like a dentist's drill. One slip and the whole lacquer had to be recut. Find an early 80s New York 12 inch with that signature in the runout, and you have found a Herb Powers Jr. master.
Find "Herbie Jr." and a smiley face etched into the runout groove of an early 80s 12 inch, and you are holding a record he personally cut, by hand, with a tool that left no room for a second try.
The habit produced one of mastering's better known stories. When Powers took a rare week off, colleague Tom Coyne covered a session cutting Run-D.M.C.'s "Hollis Crew" for Profile Records, and inscribed his own dead wax message in Powers' absence: "Who is Herbie Jr.?", smiley face included.
Mastering for the Club, Not the Radio
Powers built his reputation on a specific idea: that a 12 inch destined for a club sound system needed a different kind of master than a 7 inch built for radio. He pushed for deep, pumping bass and crisp highs, cutting records to feel physically loud on a big system rather than simply loud on a transistor radio. That approach became a defining characteristic of the New York club sound throughout the late 70s and 80s, running through disco into house and hip-hop as the decade turned over.
Herb Powers Jr.
Cut a large share of the Prelude and West End club catalogues by hand at Frankford/Wayne before moving to the Hit Factory and later opening his own facility. Known for pushing bass and loudness on 12 inch club records, and for signing his cuts with a hand carved "Herbie Jr." and a smiley face in the runout groove.
Across the Country: Bernie Grundman at A&M
While Powers was cutting club records by hand in New York, Bernie Grundman was running the mastering department at A&M Records in Hollywood, a role he held for fifteen years starting in 1968. Grundman's world looked different from Powers' club focused one, built around album masters meant to sound right on a home stereo as much as a dance floor. On July 17, 1979, at A&M's studios, Grundman mastered Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall", an album that moved fluidly between funk, disco, and soul under producer Quincy Jones. Grundman would go on to master "Thriller" as well, cementing his reputation before opening his own Hollywood facility, Bernie Grundman Mastering, in 1984.
It is worth being precise about what is and is not documented here. No specific SOLAR Records mastering credit for Grundman turned up in research for this piece, so none is claimed. What is clear is that Grundman represented the Los Angeles side of the same job Powers was doing in New York, at the same moment, on records that came out of the same broader funk and boogie ecosystem.
Bernie Grundman
Ran A&M's in-house mastering department through the 70s and into the 80s, cutting albums built for home stereo systems as much as club systems. Mastered Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" in 1979 before opening his own Hollywood facility in 1984.
Two Coasts, Two Philosophies
Powers cut records meant to be felt in a room full of dancing bodies, one lacquer at a time, signed by hand. Grundman cut records meant to hold up on repeat home listening as much as anywhere else, working out of a purpose built facility with custom consoles. Neither approach was more correct than the other. Both engineers were doing the same essential job, translating a finished mix into the actual physical groove that would carry the music into the world, and both left their mark on records that still fill dance floors on Diva Radio Funk today.
Nobody dances to a mastering credit. But every bassline that ever moved a room passed through someone like Powers or Grundman first, unnoticed and essential.
