DJ Sammy: You Wanna Just Keep Dancin’
We listened to the song that welcomes readers who visit his web site and we won’t think twice about saying, this guy’s got the beat! No wonder his fans in Spain, Germany, the UK and even low profile Canada go crazy over his tunes. DJ Sammy is a Spaniard, born on October 29, 1969 and has scored four top hits in the UK. His most successful track is that of “Heaven” – a Bryan Adams album. DJ Sammy’s real name is Samuel Bouriah.
The “Heaven” cover was created in collaboration with Dominique van Hulst, who is a popular singer in the Netherlands. He worked on his singles with Loona, who he is married to. The album entitled DJ Sammy and Yanou Featuring Do (as Dominique van Hulst is called) was written by Jim Vallance in 1983. The “Heaven” Album featuring Bryan Adams that was released in December 2001 made it to several countries’ charts, after landing top ranking in the German, Spanish and Austrian Charts in January 2002. DJ Sammy’s version of Heaven appeared in 19 national charts and we’ll name a few of them: # 1 position in the UK (2002), South Africa Airplay Chart (2002), Australia Aria Dance Chart (2002) and USA Billboard Club Play Chart (2002). It also landed # 3 position in New Zealand, # 4 in Australia, and # 12 in the Netherlands.
Also in 2002, DJ Sammy won the ASCAP Pop Award for the category, “one of the most played songs on US radio.” In Canada, it won the Socan International Achievement Award in 2003. He won other awards in the US and New Zealand. One writer said that he was surprised to hear the artist’s dance version of “Heaven” and at first was reminded of the synthesized sound which became popular in the mid-80s, but he said after he listened a few more times, it started to grow on him.
On another album entitled “Heaven S’n’Y Mix again featuring Do, the team of DJ Sammy and Yanou created and recorded it at Casa de la Loona studios. The sound was mixed and engineered by both Sammy and Joris Vinken, which was the sound most familiar to disco dancers in 2002. Curiously, there were several mixes and remixes of “Heaven” and were recorded in different countries.
For fans dying to hit the music stores to pick up some DJ Sammy tunes, here are some titles of his singles: “Life Is Just A Game” (1995), “Golden Child” (1997), “In 2 Eternity” (1999), “The Boys of Summer” (2003) , “Why” (2005) and “L`bby Haba.”