Holy shit. I should have posted this a lot sooner. Great tune. Hope you like it.

Turn this up loud. I blast this out whilst driving. Those tumbling drums and that soaring vocal line. So much to love.

Odetta Holmes, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist. She was often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”. Musically, her repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she grew up in Los Angeles, and trained as an opera singer from the age of 13. After gaining local notoriety she joined a touring musical theater company called Finian’s Rainbow. After a few years of touring she started a solo career. Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963′s best-selling folk albums.

In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her “The Queen of American folk music”. Many Americans remember her performance at the 1963 civil rights movement’s march to Washington where she sang “O Freedom.”

Odetta released only two new albums in the 20-year period from 1977-1997: Movin’ It On, in 1987 and a new version of Christmas Spirituals, produced by Rachel Faro, in 1988.

On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts. In 2004, Odetta was honored at the Kennedy Center with the “Visionary Award” along with a tribute performance by Tracy Chapman. In 2005, the Library of Congress honored her with its “Living Legend Award”.

The 2005 documentary film No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorsese, highlights her musical influence on Bob Dylan, the subject of the documentary. The film contains an archive clip of Odetta performing “Waterboy” on TV in 1959, and we also hear Odetta’s songs “Mule Skinner Blues” and “No More Auction Block for Me”.

In 2007, her album Gonna Let It Shine was nominated for a Grammy, and she completed a major Fall Concert Tour in the “Songs of Spirit” show, which included artists from all over the world. She toured around North America in late 2006 and early 2007 to support this CD.

On January 21, 2008, Odetta was the Keynote Speaker at San Diego’s Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration, followed by concert performances in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and Mill Valley, in addition to being the sole guest for the evening on PBS-TV’s The Tavis Smiley Show.

On May 2 and 3, 2008, Odetta headlined the Oberlin College Folk Fest in Oberlin, Ohio, where she spoke about her life at the Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse and gave a concert in Finney Chapel.

Odetta was honored on May 8, 2008 at a historic tribute night hosted by Wavy Gravy. Fellow musicians David Amram, Guy Davis, Vincent Cross, and Christine Lavin performed; filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus attended the concert, held at Banjo Jim’s in the East Village.

In summer 2008, at the age of 77, she launched another North American tour, with concerts in Albany, New York and other cities, singing strongly and confidently from a wheelchair. Her set in recent years included “This Little Light of Mine (I’m Gonna Let It Shine)”,[12] Lead Belly’s “The Bourgeois Blues”, (Something Inside) So Strong”, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and “House of the Rising Sun”.

She made a special appearance on June 30, 2008 at The Bitter End on Bleecker Street, New York City for a Liam Clancy tribute concert. She opened the show with Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, and finished the first set with a duet with Clancy where they sang Blowin’ in the Wind. Her strong voice was very much in evidence during her last solo piece, Something Inside So Strong. The finale saw her onstage with Clancy, Tom Paxton, Shane MacGowan, amongst others.

Her last “big concert,” before thousands of people, was in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on October 4, 2008, for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. She last performed at Hugh’s Room in Toronto on October 25.

In November 2008, Odetta’s health began to decline and she began receiving treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She had hoped to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009

On December 2, 2008, Odetta died from heart disease in New York City.

So the obvious Rick James sample would be SuperFreak. This is better. So, so much better. EPMD know that. They sampled this on four different tracks.

“3 6 9 The Goose drank wine, the Monkey chewed Tobacco on the street car line…” What the hell does that mean? More to the point, “I kissed a soldier, now she won’t buy me, a rubber dolly”. What kind of soldier is kissing girls that still want rubber dolls?! Something is not right here.

Still what a phenomenal break. The verse is familiar to so many people as a sort of nursery rhyme, then boom that chorus comes in and it is all jumping and swinging. Written by Lincoln Chase (who went on to be her manager, record producer, and husband) it was recorded by Shirley Ellis in 1965 and reached #8 on the charts.

I think I probably first heard this on the excellent Brainfreeze mix by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. The horns are just amazing, the way they layer as they come in with that galloping drum beat. And a singer shouting at the top of his lungs. The drum break is. Just. Perfect. I completely agree with Funky 16 Corners about this one:

‘Hey Joyce’ is a record that sounds like it was engineered for absolute, maximum impact, between the ears, on the dancefloor and in that special, magical otherworld where record collectors gather for the kind of figurative pissing contest where “who’s got the “heavier” crates” is the game of the day. It is a quantifiably powerful record in ever way, from its opening (and middle-ing) drum breaks, the chants of “Hey Joyce you’re my choice!” to Lou Courtney’s soul-solid screams, to the background singers “sockitome”s.

Starting in Gospel at 11, Betty release her first album at 15 on Henry Stone’s Alston record label. Can you imagine releasing an album at 15? Anyway, she was pretty much a standards signer until “Clean Up Woman” went massive, at #2 for eight weeks on the R&B chart and #6 on the pop listing.

She has been sampled by quite a few artists – Mary J Blige, SWV, Beyonce to name a few – and Clean Up Woman is definitely going to get played here soon. She now mentors several young singers and has done vocal production for such artists as Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez and Joss Stone. She has a simply astonishing voice.

As for RJD2. Well I love his turntable stuff, his guitar wankery is awful. He played this out at Cats Cradle in NC a few months ago and the place damn near tore apart. Maybe in part due to frustration at having to wait an hour for him to put the guitar down.

Eddie Bo on stage was a total celebration of New Orleans life and New Orleans music. Others became more famous, but Eddie Bo was the greatest.

Once the sample is heard it can never be unheard. Check out the J5 video, it is from when MTV actually played music videos…

I could have picked any number of songs for the sampling video. This drum beat has been used a lot. I thought I’d go with Beck for something a little different. I hope you like it. Cant write much today which sucks as I love Lee Dorsey. I’ll write much more for his next inclusion.

This song was written by Cherry as a dig at Lenny Kravitz who was messing around one of her friends. From her 1993 album Homebew. You should check that out for the Geoff Barrow (Portishead) produced “Somedays”. It is 93, and Trip Hop is coming…

As for Biggie, well lets face it. He kills this. If you want this track it is going to take some hunting for. I found it on The 10th Anniversary Mixtape, part two.