Due to space and time constraints, car salesman-cum-producer Jimmy Cheek received no mention in “Our Own Music City” from last week’s Go Triad. Cheek forged an array of hits on his Cheeco and House of Big Brother labels, but it is this 12” on the boogie-bearing Tamika imprint that brings our week of Funky Greensboro coverage to a fitting finale.

Charlie and Inez Foxx, Cheek’s cousins, cut Greensboro’s first national hit in 1963 with “Mockingbird,” an up-tempo take on the ubiquitous lullaby.  Almost twenty-five years later, Cheek took a young Melvin Washington into the studio to cut “Say You Love Me.” Nestled behind the balladeering B-side is “Mockingbird-Club and D.J. Mix,” and although it is attributed to Charlie and Inez, this modern instrumental bears suspicious little resemblance to the fabled original.

Reidsville native Fred Mills holds the honor of writing the title track, as well as arranging and co-producing alongside Cheek. Mills, who most famously collaborated with fusion muse and Durham native Betty Davis (former wife of jazz giant, Miles), used only the finest synthesizers Roland could build for these sessions. The results were most likely most evident at Rol-A-Rink in Melvin’s native High Point, where this accommodating EP supplied DJs with a banger for speed skating, a ballad for couples skate, and a futuristic lullaby for… Red Light, Green Light?