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Friday, Aug 26 2016, 6AM
The son of a Canadian potato farmer (1967's "Potato King of the World"), Tona Walt Ohama beame obsessed with music as a child and, as a young man, played shows across Canada, armed only with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and provocative props: www.facebook.com
Pos said, "“When we were recording The Magic Number, Dave [David Jude Jolicoeur, AKA Trugoy the Dove] came across a Johnny Cash album of his dad's. It had this song, "Five Feet High and Risin'." Someone said: "There's three of us – how about 3 Feet High and Rising?" That became a song lyric and the album title.”
"Three Is a Magic Number" is the pilot episode of the Schoolhouse Rock! series and the first episode of the program's first season, "Multiplication Rock.” Watch the video for this fabulous song: www.youtube.com
Syl Johnson, born Sylvester Thompson in Holly Springs, Mississippi, moved with his family to Chicago in 1950, where blues guitarist Magic Sam was his next-door neighbor. He made his solo debut that same year with Federal, a subsidiary of King Records of Cincinnati, backed by Freddie King on guitar.
Read a biography of The Fatback Band: www.allmusic.com
Double Dee and Steinski was a duo of hip hop producers, composed of Doug "Double Dee" DiFranco and Steven "Steinski" Stein. They achieved notoriety in the early 1980s for a series of underground hip-hop sample-based collages known as the "Lessons".
That's Clyde Stubblefield, the "funky drummer" on this song. Read "the natural history of the Funky Drummer break": www.ethanhein.com
"Them your lips over there?" Listen to the entire piece by Eddie Murphy here: www.youtube.com
"So check out the Master as he cuts these jams..." Here are the lyrics to "Jam Master Jay": genius.com
Pos said of "Change in Speak": "There was a record I found that had a whole bunch of great songs from the Mad Lads on it. Then we just decided to put the 'Bra' song from Cymade on it, we just started mashing things. We all worked together really well as a foursome, just trying to add different things."
British funk group Cymande was formed by Steve Scipio and Patrick Patterson iin 1971. This stirring track comes from their 1972 debut LP.
This track comes from Memphis-based R&B group The Mad Lads’ second full-length album, titled The Mad, Mad, Mad, Lads, released in 1969. Read more about this band, with the "high, innocent tenor" of John Gary Williams: www.billboard.com
This song, written by The Monkees' Michael Nesmith, was covered wonderfully by The Butterfield Blues Band on its epic "East-West."
This song, widely considered one of the last hits of the disco era, was Michael Jackson's first collaboration with Quincy Jones. "Off the Wall" sold 20 million copies and made Jackson the first solo
artist to have four singles from the same LP peak in the Billboard Top 10.
The Rock Steady Crew, led by Jojo and Jimmy Dee, was a Bronx breakdancing group that had 35 members in 1984. Learn breakdancing moves at their official website: www.rocksteadycrew.com
Watch the highly popular roller disco moves in this video for "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll": www.youtube.com
According to the artist, this paean to Brooklyn "almost went platinum." Known for his use of three turntables (as mentioned in this song) Cutmaster D.C. released a string of singles
in the mid-80s, primarily on Zakia Records.
The Fearless Four (actually a sextet) were the first rap crew signed to a major label, Elektra. This song, "Rockin' It," was based on Kraftwerk's "The Man-Machine." Read a biography of this pioneering group www.allmusic.com
“The New Style” was the second of seven singles off Beastie Boys' debut
LP, "License to Ill" (which was the first rap album to top the Billboard Charts). "I got more juice than Picasso got paint....": www.azlyrics.com
Learn how Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship and then just Starship: ultimateclassicrock.com
Now, from Starship to Rocketship.. Marc Cerrone is considered one of the most important European disco producers of the 70's and 80's, selling more than 30 million albums worldwide.
Critic Robert Christgau wrote in his review of the album "Lyte As A Rock"
that “[MC Lyte] knows how to talk tough without yielding to the stupid
temptations of macho.” Visit MC Lyte's official website here: www.mclytenow.com
On this song, The Treacherous Three is puported to be the first hip-hop group to use guitars in a song. Here's a biography of this group: www.oldschoolhiphop.com
LL Cool J sampled himself, using "Rock the Bells " on his hit single, "Mama Said Knock You Out." Despite its title, the no
audible bells can be heard on the album version of the track-- the original
version, released only on 12” single, features a variety of bells, including
a prominent cowbell.
Gregory Abbott, best known for this song "Shake You Down," was the subject of a recent death hoax: en.mediamass.net
Though the melody for "PlanetRock" explicitly borrows from Kraftwerk’s track “Trans
Europe Express,” Bambaataa has said in interviews Kraftwerk’s influence
on his sound has been overstated, and that the track was also heavily
influenced by Gary Numan & Yellow Magic Orchestra.
The Crash Crew was originally known as Disco Dave and the Force of the 5 MCs. ((whew!) Here's an Allmusic biography: www.allmusic.com
Listen to Richard Pryor's take on a "crap game": www.youtube.com
Orange Krush acted
as backing band for Run-DMC on their seminal albums "Run-DMC" (1984)
and "King of Rock"(1985). This track, “Action” was the band’s sole single,
released in 1982 on Mercury Records.
"I wish my cousin Nag was here; he knows these things...: genius.com
The title referencing George A. Romero’s movie Night of the Living Dead,
“Night of the Living Baseheads” describes the effects of the 1980s crack
epidemic on African-American communities throughout America. (“Base”
is slang for cocaine). See the video, featuring MC Lyte as a reporter and Flavor Flav as a co-anchor on PETV: www.youtube.com
"Solid" was this husband-and-wife duo's greatest hit. Nick Ashford died at age 70 of complications of throat cancer. Here, Valerie Simpson talks about their life together and her experience after his death: www.popmatters.com
This is one of the songs in the "Roxanne Wars," "Hip-hop's Greatest Saga." Read All about it here: erictb.wordpress.com
"Cold Lampin' refers to tapping into the electricity of a street ligh iin order to power microphones and turntables for rap battles: www.urbandictionary.com
Philly artist Steady B released five albums between 1986 and 1991. Read about how a bank robbery conviction in 1996 led to his life imprisonment: medium.com
www.youtube.com the video for Run-D.M.C.'s "Hit It Run": www.youtube.com
Visit Old School Hiphop for a biography of The B-Boys: www.oldschoolhiphop.com
Here are the lyrics to "Terminator X....": genius.com
This short skit-like song finds each of the De La Soul members whispering embarrassing secrets about each other over a sample of New Birth's Birth Daytrack "Got To Get A Knutt."
Ahhh.....the Friday song. "My name's Plug 1...." An early concept for 3 Feet High and Rising involved music being transmitted from Mars by three microphone plugs (each one representing a member of the group). Though this idea was abandoned, the titles "Plug One", "Plug Two" and "Plug Three" still became relevant on the album. Pos' title of Plug One would eventually evolve into Plug Wonder Why, which has been shortened to Plug Won.
Watch De La Soul perform "Jenifa" live on the Fallon Show: www.rollingstone.com
Here's a biography of The Steve Miller Band: www.allmusic.com
Not truly sampled in Jenifa Taught Me, but the iconic "now wait a minute" line is copied.
Drum break from the beginning of this track (0:01) is used a couple times in Jenifa Taught Me, first at 0:46. In addition, the scatting from 0:12 and “mouse” hook from 0:36 are used throughout the De La track, both in pure form and scratched. Also, the guitar riff at 0:44 is used throughout the De La track.
“Ho” during the drum break is scratched/played starting at 3:07 on Jenifa Taught Me.
The Bobby Byrd “yeah” and James Brown “wooh” vocals from the drum break are scratched throughout Jenifa Taught Me, first at the beginning of the track.