Samples are a big part of this week's mix. The sweet "The Soil I Tilled For You" by Shades Of Brown, Art Blakey & The Messengers' "A Chant For Bu" and two tracks by The Last Poets --"Time" and "Tribute To Obabi"--comprise the samples that make up the incredible "Excursions" by A Tribe Called Quest. All of them appear here.
Ghostface Killah's "Buck 50" heavily samples The Baby Huey Story's "Hard Times" for this week's other set of sample songs.
Three songs repeat this week: Paul Simon's "Mother And Child Reunion" is covered by The Morning Benders, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "Doggone Right" gets a sweet reggae cover by Bobby Davis & The Sensations, and T. Rex's "20th Century Boy" gets a lovingly sloppy cover by The Replacements.
The Clash's "I'm Not Down" is one of their few with Mick Jones on lead vocals and, like the others, has a nice vulnerability absent from many of their other songs. Jackie Ross' "Selfish One", at the other end of this mix, reminds me of the "Dusties" AM radio station in Chicago, which many years ago played this often during the late night hours, among other oldies. It's a perfect song, I particularly enjoyed the hand claps as I listened to it again recently.
In between: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings with a James Brown & The JB's-styled cover of Prince's "Take Me With U", the rare 80s bootleg "Wonderful Ass" by Prince with The Revolution, Weldon Irvine's mellow "Morning Sunrise", Jay-Z's "Never Change" mashed up over a J Dilla production, The Guess Who's catchy "No Time", an early version of Rod Stewart's Cat Stevens cover "The First Cut Is The Deepest", and Aretha Franklin's soulful cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over A Troubled Water" with moody keyboards by Billy Preston.
