name that tune (2)...

2006-12-16 by The Mighty Alboy

kool and the gang – “summer madness”

Well here we are- probably only James Brown has been sampled more than Kool and the Gang...

In two minds whether to post this, given how it do make one yearn for a bit of the old sunshine, but it is something of a pearler. From their 1974 album “Light of Worlds”and as featured in the original soundtrack of “Rocky”!

Bless Robert “Kool” Bell, and his Gang- I loved the bit in “Dancing in the Streets” when Kool was asked about the arrival of the whole George Clinton/P*Funk thing, and he was saying about how they tried to compete with Parliament, getting more and more people on the stage, but had to give up- “you know, we had some funk, but George Clinton…he had the bomb!”

Parliament may have out-numbered, out-crazied and out-funked them but the jazzier outings that followed are synthtastic, and pretty much the only jazz funk I can really go for.

Speaking of K&TG, has anyone ever noticed how much “Joanna” sounds like Wham!’s “Last Christmas”?

Download MP3 (0:00min / 0MB)

A link to some great Kool and the Gang videos!
Official Site
# | Posted in > p*soul | funk | soul | *now offline*
Comments » (5)

Comments  RSS

  1. Squeaker says (on Dec 16, 2006 @ 02:16 AM):

    Beautiful, dood.
    So how about a Wham!-Joanna mashup then? ;-)

  2. The Double K says (on Dec 18, 2006 @ 11:51 AM):

    Are we really sure this is where the sample is from? It's not obvious… I get that the chord progression is the same, but the piano is nowhere to be heard.

  3. KL says (on Dec 22, 2006 @ 01:22 AM):

    I had a listen to the DJ Trax tune last night and the piano is very similar to Summer Madness… I have heard it before (much slower) in the Gangstarr song "DJ Premier is in Deep Concentration" in which he uses the synth line from "Summer Madness" as a scratch as well. Searching around the web I came across an article that talks about him using "Summer Madness" on another track called "Manifest" (http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/da/26530).... According to www.the-breaks.com he uses another Kool & The Gang track called "Funky Stuff" (on the 1973 LP Wild and Peaceful) in "Deep Concentration" but that doesn't seem like it has the piano either. Anyway have a listen to the DJ Premier track and see if you think he's using the same piano, wherever it has come from.

  4. Iceman says (on Dec 30, 2006 @ 01:49 AM):

    Is that the song on Rockys Record player wenn he was talking to the turtles. and i guess mary j blige used it for her song Massage in our Music

  5. The Double K says (on Jan 3, 2007 @ 04:42 PM):

    Nice one KL – just got round to tracking these down… DJ Premier in Deep Concentration is definitely the same sample as the Autechre track, complete with the piano.

    I guess there might be different versions of Summer Madness out there? I'm sure the sample doesn't come from this version though.

    Iceman, I'm confused about Rocky – do you mean Rocky the boxer? When did he talk to the turtles? Was that just before the fight with Apollo Creed?

Your Comment

No audio file allowed

::