Songwriter/producer/musician Patrick Adams is responsible for some of the most elegant, earworm-y, deep-ish cuts of the disco and post-disco eras—Donna McGhee’s “It Ain’t No Big Thing,” Inner Life’s “I’m Caught Up (In a One Night Love Affair),” Phreek’s “Weekend,” Cloud One Orchestra’s “Atmosphere Strut,” and Musique’s “Summer Love,” to name a few. He’s also responsible for some of the raunchiest—including Musique’s “In the Bush,” which was famously banned from hundreds of radio stations upon its release in 1978 (you know the one, it goes, “Push, push in the bush / Push, push in the bush…”).
Adams will be saluted on Thursday at Harlem’s Alhambra Ballroom, where a big band will recreate some of his beloved tracks for Red Bull Music Academy’s The Music of Patrick Adams event. Given the retrospective nature of this concert, we had the 67-year-old Adams visit the Jezebel office to talk about his career in general, and specifically the writing he has done for female artists.
“I was always trying to be conscious of a woman’s point of view, and not being the predator, not being a dog,” he told us. Above is our conversation, below is a selection of our favorite Adams songs for those unfamiliar with his work.
