Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Crate Find

"Is It Because I'm Black ?" is a 1969 Blues/Soul beauty with a social conscience by Syl Johnson. Bill Polak writes this of him; "Johnson's expressions of pain and despair through the medium of his achingly thin, frayed tenor/falsetto is chillingly precise and deeply compelling." It's kind of true, his voice carries a lot of meaningful spirit, it's haunting, nostalgic and brilliant. He makes me think of Cee Lo, but without the humour factor maybe. Very cool track this.

Scottish Disco House Producers Deep Sensation pinched a whole lot of this original gem for one of their 90's Guidance releases, a track that still gets a lotta love on the dance floor when i decide to play it.

Danny from Grooveprovider also pointed out that Moodyman uses part of the track on the brilliant 'I'm Doing Fine Now'

http://www.zshare.net/audio/syl-johnson-is-it-because-im-black_-mp3.html

5 comments:

DannyBlue said...

Great tune. Also sampled pretty heavily by KDJ on I'm Doing Fine from the Mahogoni album

chris keys said...

Hey Danny, hmmm didnt realise that, obviously im a fan of 'I'm doing fine' but havent heard the connection - I'll check it out, thanks for the heads up on that.

chris keys said...

Oh right ofcourse, that break always just blew me away!!!

DannyBlue said...

good isn't it, a big raw chunk just drops right in. I'll have to find some more Syl...

Unknown said...

also, check out "hollow bones" from wu-tang.