Monday, March 26, 2012

The Brothers Johnson - Look Out for #1...back to the music


The Brothers Johnson - Look Out for #1...I am pretty much hooked on the song they do, I'll be Good to You.  It has a great hook and many cool breakdowns.  And according to Nile Rodgers, the first part of songs, to him, are just reasons (mere filler?) in order to get to the breakdown/s in a song.  My pal Scott (Skooter) also really like their other large hit, Strawberry Letter 23.  Click on this post's title to see and hear it.  The funky guitar solo on that song is by Lee Ritenour.  Here is more on The Brothers Johnson, to wit - the brothers are, George aka 'Lightnin' Licks' and Louis E. Johnson aka 'Thunder Thumbs.'   Quincy Jones, I might contend, is the 3rd Johnson brother.  Q produced all but one of their records.  In a documentary on the making of Off the Wall, Q mentions some songs he (Q) had that he was working on with the Brothers Johnson.  One of those songs became Get on the Floor, penned by Louis Johnson, which is track 4 on Off the Wall.  Q gets the best talent in the studio apparently: Billy Cobham plays timbales on our record shown above.  Also credited are Ralph MacDonald, Ernie Watts, Dave Grusin, Harvey Mason, Glenn Faris, and  Toots (Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron) Thielemans, the great Belgian jazz musician known for his guitar and harmonica playing as well as his whistling.  Toots is considered one of the greatest living harmonica players of the 20th century.  In 2009 he became NEA Jazz Master, the highest honour for a jazz musician in the United States.

2 comments:

  1. Just about every Friday afternoon when I was in college, I'd spend a good chunk of it at the used record store. I saw this record a thousand times if I saw it once and never got it. But now that I hear "I'll be Good to You", I realize they had some good material!
    Spencer

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  2. My boys! I just ordered this vinyl off of Amazon. Filler and hits are my favs by these cats as im a funk freak aficionado!

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