The 9th Creation - Collection (1975-1979)

9th Creation was one of the greatest funk bands of the 1970’s. The band was formed in 1970 by A.D. Burrise in Stockton, California, under the original name ‘Soul Struts’ and started out as many bands do: performing the music of others at local hotspots. In 1971, J.D. Burrise (brother of A.D.) joined the band and became the lead singer and bandleader. As bandleader, J.D. decided that it was time to change their name to ‘3rd Creation’ and felt it was important that they began creating original material. By 1972, with the help of then manager, Nat Pierce, ‘3rd Creation’ recorded their first LP at ‘Studio C’ in Stockton.

Within two months of completing their recordings, the band landed their first record deal with Sussex Records (the label that legendary Bill Withers built). As part of their deal with Sussex, the band was forced to change their name once again due to the fact that there was already an existing band with the ‘3rd Creation’ name. In attempting to retain part of the identity that the band had developed with their name and since there were nine members of the band at that time, the group decided on their final name: 9th Creation.

Within two months of signing with Sussex, ‘9th Creation’ released their first single, “Still Your Friend.” The song was an instant hit, charting Billboard’s top 25 and the band found immediate fame with their appearance on Soul Train. Little did they know that they were weeks away from being handed their first hard lesson in the music biz. Shortly after their instant success, Sussex Records went under and with it, so did the ‘9th Creation’s’ masters and their short-lived success.

Fortunately, this blow did not deter the band from wanting to push forward with their dreams of stardom. ‘9th Creation’ continued to work toward a second album. It would take three years and a lot of penny pinching before they found themselves back into a studio. They shopped a five-song demo to the major labels and with Warner Bros., landed what is referred to today as a development deal. From this deal, the song “Falling in Love” was recorded. Despite the fact that the band knew they had a hit single on their hands, Warner Bros. decided to pass on ‘9th Creation’, allowing them to take their masters with them.

Around that same time, a hometown DJ and co-author of the Gavin-Kraham Review (David Allen Kraham) received a copy of the single, “Falling in Love” and immediately knew that this song was going to be a hit. Rite Track Records emerged and released the single. Within a couple of weeks of being featured in the Gavin-Kraham Review, ‘9th Creation’ found instant success once again. “Falling in Love” charted Billboard’s R&B top 10 for 13 consecutive weeks and top 25 for 26 weeks thereafter. ‘9th Creation’ knew that this time success was theirs. The band soon found that they had another hard lesson to learn, this time in the world of distribution. The demand for their music was national, but they only had west-coast distribution and so decided to sign with ATV/Pye (the label later purchased by Michael Jackson) in order to obtain worldwide distribution. As fate would have it, lightening struck for a second time one year later when ATV/Pye closed shop in the United States.

The president of ATV/Pye’s US territory decided to open up his own record label, Prelude Records, and encouraged ‘9th Creation’ to follow. They did just that and recorded and released their third album, “Reaching for the Top”. After a year of frustration due to a lack of promotion and backing by the label, J.D. made a crucial decision: to buy their way out of their contract taking with them all rights, masters and publishing. From this, Burrise Way Productions was born.

Finally, ‘9th Creation’ felt as though they were in complete control of their destinies and knew that it was only a matter of time before success would be theirs again. It was then that disco took the world by storm and rained on any “funk” band on the rise. J.D. then made the decision to depart from the band, but ‘9th Creation’ pushed on with performing under the direction of A.D. once again. In 1986, J.D. decided to rejoin the band and once again they found themselves back into the studio. The R&B mini-album, “Love Crimes,” was recorded and released with little success. After an 18-year run, the members of ‘9th Creation’ decided to call it quits. Some went on to play in other bands, others never returned to the music world again.

Despite their unfortunate battles with stardom, ‘9th Creation’ did eventually achieve success through the endless list of R&B and hip hop bands that, to this day, continue to sample their music. They earned gold records from Def Jam’s hip hop band ‘3rd Base’ as well as for Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s sampling. To date, their song “Bubblegum” has been sampled 23 times, “Rule of Mind” 19 times, and “Falling in Love” has been re-made four times. The music of ‘9th Creation’ continues to live through the music of today, thus exemplifying that quality and excellence never dies…