Amen Brother

Amen Brother by the Winstons from 1969 is the most sampled 6 seconds in music history according to stuff that I found posted on the internets. A little trolling of the youtube came up with the stuff.



The breakbeat comes in at 1:27 on the file above. It should be familiar to anyone with ears even if you can't place where you last heard it.

A friend from the Bay Area (JZ-the rollercoaster was awesome on Saturday night!) shared this clip with me that tells the story behind Amen Brother.



The presentation above is delivered in a Speak and Spell type mode. So there is entertainment value in that alone.

First the break was used in a straight forward manner like in Straight Out of Compton. Then it was used in the Jungle and Rythm and Bass musical genres used as the complete basis of their sound. They even share a clip of Perry Farrell (yes, him) doing a cover of Whole Lotta Love in a Jungle mode using Amen as the basis of the song.

The example of commercials using the break are pretty funny, especially as they are potentially sourced via bootleg cds. Eventually the presentation makes the point that more stringent copyrights are a bad thing.

How were the Winstons compensated? It appears that they were never paid. Mainly because they never persued a legal battle.

Black Merda CD

After a night of sake, udon noodles, and Asian snack shopping in Gotham, I turned the corner and ventured down St. Marks. I went down the street and visited Robert and Rockit Scientist Records. I had my co worker with me, so I did not spend too mush time in digger mode.

I had to buy something, so I picked up the last CD copy of Black Merda. This is a Russian version of the Chess Records release. Could this have originally been released in 1967? Below are my thoughts based on a listening session in my Union Square hotel room.

Black Merda takes a place in the post Hendrix rock pantheon. The 1st track, "Prophet" with the refrain, "Set Me Free," sets the tone in a fuzzy manner. The next track "Think of Me" is a more lightweight number.

The next track, "Cynthy Ruth" familiar to listeners of the "Black Chains and Exhaust" boot from a few years back. Jimi-styled husky vocs on top of a fuzzy guitar riff and a funky wah-wah rythm guitar.

"Over and Over" takes an instro electrical blooz and makes it psychedelic at the same time. Mucho distortion on the constantly riffing lead guitar. Since this record originally came out on Chess Records, the sound here makes sense as "Electric Mud" and the psychedelic Howlin' Wolf LP were in the near future.

"Ashamed" takes a Northern Soul style sound and dirties it up a bit and makes the vibe quite a bit more angry.

Flip the cd over and side 2 starts with "Reality" which again shows evidence of a grittier Chitown sound. No stretch could compare this with the Chilites-although Black Merda definitely listened to them.

"Windsong" shows evidence of experimentation as the guitar sounds more acoustic and less distorted. Some sound effects are underneath-wind blowing-and there is a bit of organ buried in the mix. Instro and pretty much throw away, or perhaps a break in the set to roll another? Mellow...

"Good Luck" kicks the distortion throb up to "Cynthy Ruth" levels. They just beat the riff into submission, but the lazy tempo makes the listener think that it could fall apart at any point- it doesn't. Odd fade out and end to the track, though.

"That's The Way It Goes" has a good bassline that drives the track. Kind of a fragment of a song.

"I Don't Want To Die" has a lyrical content that may be related to drugs, the Viet Nam War, or perhaps Race Relations, all topics for 1967 lyrical discourse.

"Set Me Free" ends the set as a 43 second fragement acsoustic in nature that actually works well as a coda.

I'm with Dante on this one. "Cynthy Ruth" is the killer track here and the highpoint of the record. Chess had a winner in Black Merda. I am sure that no one noticed at the time. An interesting time capsule. I am glad that I picked it up.