In 1955 blues legend Muddy Waters recorded the first version of his blues standard Mannish Boy in Chicago. The recording featured Junior Wells on harmonica, in one of his few studio recordings. The song is an answer song to Bo Diddley's I'm The Man, which was also recorded in 1955. I'm The Man was inspired by Hoochie Coochie Man, which was recorded by Waters in 1954. All three of these songs appear on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs Of All-time.
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The Five Stairsteps have been called "The First Family Of Soul." The Chicago born soul group is best known for their 1970 song O-o-h Child. The band was made up of the Burke family, four teenage brothers and their sister, and was managed by their police officer father who stood-in on base. After winning a talent contest in they we signed to Curtis Mayfield's Windy City label, and they released many hits with Mayfield before they separated in 1970. Their new producer Stan Vincent supplied the group with their signature O-o-h Child - he had written it for his son. The song has been covered and sampled dozens of times and is on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.
In the 1980's musician,songwriter and producer Maurice Starr was a member of the electro funk hip-hop group The Jonzun Crew. The all brother band was led by Starr's brother Michael Jonzun, and it included their other brother Soni Jonzun. We Are The Jonzun Crew is the opening track on their 1983 debut album Lost In Space. Meanwhile Starr was busy producing his own side projects, and in a search to create a band to sing his songs he discovered New Edition in 1982. He produced and wrote the entire Candy Girl album with his brother Michael Jonzun. After Starr split with the group over differences he created New Kids On The Block in 1984, this led to a Songwriter Of The Year award for Starr in 1988.
In 1975 the funk band Slave was formed in Dayton, Ohio, and by 1977 they had a hit with their single Slide. On their third album in 1978 drummer/ percussionist Steve Arrington joined the band, before long his role expanded to back-up singer too. By Stone Jam, the band's fifth album in 1980, Arrington had taken over more singing responsibility singing lead on a few of the albums tracks. Because of the popularity of those tracks, including the often-sampled song Watching You, in 1980 Arrington took over as the group's lead vocalist. It wasn't long before Arrington would expand his role again, and in 1982 he left Slave to start his own band - Steve Arrington's Hall Of Fame. The 1972 Hindi film Apradh is where The Black Eyed Peas found the song Ae Naujawan Hai Sab, which they sampled for their 2005 hit Don't Phunk With My Heart. Indian cinema superstar Asha Bhosle sings the funk-rock song in this action thriller romance. The song Don't Phunk With My Heart sampled from Apradh, and it also sampled from the 1978 Hindi action thriller Don. And for the lyrics to the Black Eyed Peas song - they were heavily inspired by the 1985 hit I Wonder If I Take You Home by Lisa Lisa, and by 1988's Sally That Girl by Gucci Crew II. George McCrae's 1974 hit single Rock Your Baby spent two weeks at the top of the Billboard R&B singles chart. The single is one of less then 40 that has sold more then 10 million physical copies worldwide. The track was written by KC and The Sunshine Band, and it was never intended to have McCrae on it - he just happened to be at the studio when KC and The Sunshine Band were recording and he stepped in to add-lib a vocal. This song inspired the drum part in Dancing Queen, the popular 1970's single by Swedish pop group Abba, and it inspired the chord progression in John Lennon's 1974 hit Whatever Gets You Through The Night. The song also inspired an answer back single from the soul and disco singer's wife Gwen McCrae that was released in 1975 - Rockin' Chair. Between 1970-1982 the Doobie Brothers were one of the top-selling American rock bands. In 1976 former Steely Dan vocalist Michael McDonald was brought into the band after lead singer Tom Johnson became seriously ill on tour. Some off the best known Doobie Brothers songs were recorded with McDonald. In 1982 the singer/songwriter broke up the band when he left to go solo with his album If That's What It Takes. The albums big hit single was I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near), which was based on the 1962 Lieber & Stroller song of the same title - which has been covered by David Bowie, Joe Cocker and others. McDonald's variation of I Keep Forgettin' has been sampled numerous times, such as on Warren G's 1992 hit single Regulate. In this video clip Michael McDonald performs I Keep Forgettin' with the Doobie Brothers at the final show before they broke up. In 1984 former Temptations frontman Dennis Edwards released this classic smooth groove during his short solo run. The duet features the debut of a young and gifted new artist named Siedah Garrett, who later went on to do a unforgettable duet with Michael Jackson on 1987's Bad album - I Just Can't Stop Loving You. She also co-wrote Man In The Mirror, also on Jackson's Bad album. Garrett later had numerous solo releases, and she sang background on countless dozens of recordings - the list of hits is quite impressive. The groove beneath this delightful duet has been sampled over sixty times. Zamina Mina (Zangalewa) was a big hit for the makossa group Golden Sounds from Cameroon, a group formed of active members of the presidential guard. The 1986 song mocks black military officers that joined with whites to oppress their own people, it was a huge hit across Africa. In Nigerian schools it was used as a marching song, and it became a popular song of the soldiers in the Nigerian Civil War. Today the song is still widely used across Africa as a marching or rallying song, The song has been covered or sampled at least a dozen times, such as when Shakira sampled this song for her 2010 World Cup anthem Waka Waka (This Time For Africa).
In 1967 the newly formed Bar-Kays were signed to Volt, a subsidiary of Stax Records, where they quicky were groomed into the labels house band supporting artists such as Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. Later that year the The Bar-Kays released their first single Soul Finger, which set up the bands debut album. Otis Redding chose The Bar-Kays to back him on tour, and in December 1967 a plane carrying Redding and the band crashed in Wisconsin killing everyone onboard except for the trumpeter Ben Cauley - who survived. The band's bassist James Alexander had not been able to fit on the seven-passanger plane, and in 1968 the band's influential manager Allen Jones re-formed the band with Alexander, Cauley and a new line-up. Cauley left the often touring band in 1971 so he could take care for his young daughters at home, and the band went on to produce dozens of charting singles such as Shine, off their 1979 album Light Of Life. |
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