Release Date: 13/09/2024 - Damn Right I Am Somebody (Repress)
This record will be released
In 1974 one of James Brown’s most important band-leaders and sidemen - trombonist Fred Wesley – would release not one but two albums as a leader including Damn Right I Am Somebody. Starting with an evocative cover it was clear to fans that this album wasn’t all about a party.
Artist: Fred Wesley & The JBs
Genre: Funk
Label: Get On Down
Deep messages abound in the songs here, such as the nearly 10-minute workout “I’m Paying Taxes, But What Am I Buying.” Social messages aside, Fred and his assembled JBs were a party-moving funk machine at heart, as heard on “If You Don’t Get It The First Time, Back Up And Try It Again, Party” and the laid-back groove of “Same Beat” (with prototypical sampling of Jesse Jackson exhorting an audience to chant “I am / Somebody”). Nestled among these raise-your-fist classics is one of the most experimental funk cuts ever made: “Blow Your Head,” known to relatively modern listeners as the backbone of Public Enemy’s “Public Enemy #1” (from 1987). Other tracks have been sampled by EPMD, Run-DMC, De La Soul, Digable Planets, and Ice-T among others. Get On Down pays reverent tribute to the reissue of this classic housed in a 1970s style Stoughton jacket.
About the artist
Fred Wesley is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s, and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s.
This Vinyl product is a:
- Standard Pressing
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