Lee Dorsey - “Get out of My Life Woman” - 1966, Starting off the De La Soul adventure with Lee Dorsey. “Eye Know” samples the drum part in this rhythm & blues song, providing a perfect back beat to the new creation. Lee Dorsey was a auto repair man by day, musician by night. As a New Orleans resident, he was lucky enough to be discovered by the famed musician and producer, Allen Toussaint. The album that this song is off of, Ride Your Pony, was his first commercial success. After this, he would be backed live and in the studio by The Meters, until his last album for awhile in 1970. He made a short comeback in the late 70s opening for James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, and strangely enough, The Clash.

Sly & the Family Stone - “Sing a Simple Song” - 1970, I would never have known that this song was sampled had I not watched an interview with De La Soul talking about this song in particular. Because one drum beat is never enough, DLS sampled the breakdown drum beat that occurs in the middle of Sly’s song, and layered it with Lee Dorsey’s drum beat. The result makes a much fuller sound, as Sly’s beat is just a simplified version of Lee’s. Sly & the Family Stone was the first integrated group in rock history and was a pioneer in the funk scene, bringing funk to the mainstream, even before the godfather of funk, George Clinton.

The Mad Lads - “Make This Young Lady Mine” - 1969, Even though this song provides a ton of samples to the De La Soul track, it is probably my least favorite of the group. It’s ok. The intro is awesome, which makes a few of the samples - the opening guitar chords make up the first half of the verses, and the opening horn part is sampled in between verses. The Mad Lads were in highschool when they were signed to their first label, Stax, in 1964. Their career was suspended when they were drafted into military service in 1966. Unfortunately it never really recovered after their return.

Otis Redding - “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay” - 1968, Everyone knows this song, and it’s iconic whistle solo is used during the second half of the verses of “Eye Know”.

Steely Dan - “Peg” - 1977, This was what I first “pegged” as a sample in “Eye Know”. During the second half of the verses, the guitar, bass, and keyboards that occur in the verses of “Peg” are all sampled. Then on top of that, the vocal line, “I know I love you better,” are used at the end of verses. And finally, the horn hook is swiped to finish off the verses. Safe to say, that without “Peg,” basically “Eye Know,” would not exist. Steely Dan is one of my favorite bands of all time, so it was really cool to here them sampled into hip hop.

De La Soul - “Eye Know” - 1989, This brings us to the featured track of the playlist, “Eye Know”. This track is off of their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, and was produced by Prince Paul (half of Handsome Boy Modeling School, featured in the July 2023 playlist). De La Soul is one of the most influential early hip hop groups of the late 80’s and 90’s, and have been touring and making albums consistently until as recently as their Grammy nominated album, …And the Anonymous Nobody, in 2016. Because of ownership problems with their first six albums, these albums weren’t available to stream until March of 2023.

Q-Tip - “Barely in Love” - 2002 (released 2009), Q-Tip originally (and off and on currently) was a member of Tribe Called Quest (featured on the February 2023 playlist). This album, Kamaal The Abstract, is technically Q-Tip’s sophomore album by recording date, however it wasn’t released until 2009. His goal was to achieve something similar to the huge album from Outkast, Speakerboxx/The Love Below, in the way that they tied hip-hop to other genres of music such as jazz. Consequently, I wouldn’t even classify this particular song as hip-hop. It is more rock/funk. The album was recorded with a live band as opposed to being produced through samples, and features elements more in line with a rock record.

Seu Jorge - “Carolina” - 2001, The last time Seu Jorge was featured in one of my playlists, he was a featured vocalist in a Big Terra song (November 2022 playlist). Seu is a Brazilian musician (also known as that guy playing the guitar in the movie, The Life Aquatic, in which he sang Portuguese covers of David Bowie songs), and was a big part of bringing back Brazilian samba to contemporary music. He has developed a big following internationally from his film credits in The Life Aquatic (which is where I first heard him) and 2002’s City of God.

Chayns - “Live With the Moon” - 1966, This is a really cool mainly guitar driven instrumental from a small band from San Antonio, Tx in the 60s. The guitar player wrote and recorded this song when he was only 16 years old. Although they played for four years, they never really achieved commercial success, aside from opening for a few bigger acts.

The Sonics - “Have Love Will Travel” - 1965, A fact that is not well known amongst casual listeners, is that a large portion of the Black Keys’ early releases were covers of little known blues songs from the 50s-60s. This is one of those tunes, and if you are a Black Keys fan, you should instantly recognize it, as they didn’t change it all that much. You can hear from the recording that The Sonics were ahead of their time, playing a raucously loud version of rock n roll that is killer if you consider the times. They gained fame in the Pacific Northwest, opening for acts like the Beach Boys and the Shangri-Las. Decades later, grunge bands from the 90s like Nirvana were citing The Sonics as an influence on their music. Their latest album was surprisingly cut in 2014.

The Hazmats - “Empty Rooms” - 2022, If you like punk or hardcore, please, let me introduce you to the Hazmats - but here is the catch, this is neither punk nor hardcore. In fact punks and hardcore fans alike are completely polarized on if they like this or not. The Hazmats only have three singles out, so you can be one of those cool people that says, “I listened to them when they only had 571 regular listeners on Spotify”. The band is a side project of members of three British punk/hardcore bands, Chubby and the Gang, Big Cheese, and Game. If there was ever a band that could bring punk or hardcore to mainstream listeners, this is it, as it clashes big time with ambient rock and pop.

Curtis Knight & the Squires (feat. Jimi Hendrix) - “How Would You Feel” - 1965 (released 2015), This is another one that was released waaaaaaay after the recording. The album is cleverly titled, You Can’t Use My Name, from a quote by Hendrix that can be heard in the background of one of the studio recordings. Jimi had signed a contract with the owner of PPX Studios for only one dollar, which gave Jimi and his estate trouble for decades. These recordings are really cool to me because it is Jimi mostly playing rhythm parts for a type of music that he is not necessarily known for, more straight forward rock, rather than the psych-rock that we jammed on full blast in our cars when we were 16. One song on the album that feels way more like Hendrix is the instrumental “Hornet’s Nest” which is Hendrix finally being able to do what he does best. When you listen to “How Would You Feel,” you may notice that it sounds EXTREMELY similar to Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” which is really interesting because they were recorded in the same year…

Marlena Shaw - “California Soul” - 1969, Marlena was a Blues, Jazz, and pop singer in the 60s and 70s and the first female vocalist signed to the renown Blue Note Records. She never made it to full on headline status, but toured with Sammy Davis, Jr. during the last few years of her career. In 2014, Blue Note Records re-released her work which led to a few remixes by prominent DJs in Europe.

Geese - “Gravity Blues” - 2023, Credit to my cuz, Mitch, for turning me onto this band very recently. These guys almost belong in the 2000s indie rock band category but they are more sophisticated than that. While indie rock is definitely the base, you can definitely hear influences in the album from ambient rock, prog rock, and even hard rock/metal, sometimes all in the same song.

Menahan Street Band - “The Traitor” - 2008, I heard this recently in a pizza place in Breckenridge, CO. This is a veritable super group of musicians that hang in the background despite being part of the heart and soul of the bands that they play with regularly. Thomas Brenneck (The Expressions), Dave Guy (The Roots, The Dap-Kings), Nick Movshon (Lee Fields and the Expressions, The Black Keys, The Avalanches), Leon Michels (El Michaels Affair, The Black Keys), and Homer Steinweiss (The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields and the Expressions). Since most of their music is instrumental, they have provided a canvas of samples for modern hip hop artists such as Eminem, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, 50 Cent, and Curren$y.

Joshua Ray Walker - “Linger” - 2023, This is the country cover you didn’t know you needed. Joshua Ray Walker is a Dallas, Tx country musician, and his next will feature covers from Lizzo, The Cranberries, Whitney Houston, Cher, Sia, LeAnn Rimes, Q Lazarus, Sinead O’Connor, Dolly Parton, Beyonce, and Regina Spektor. I, for one, can not wait to hear this. This Cranberries cover is really well produced, but also kind of silly at the same time. It has an Irish penny-whistle solo, presumably a nod to the Cranberries’ Irish descent, as well as a ripping steel guitar solo. Oh yeah, Kyle Gass from Tenacious D is also featured on this recording.

Khruangbin - “So We Won’t Forget” - 2020, I featured Houston, Tx psych-rock band, Khruangbin, on the January 2023 playlist featured with Leon Bridges. Honestly one of the best bands to come out of Houston in recent history.

Adriano Celentano - “Prisencolinensinainciusol” - 1972, When the Conduit of the Solstice sent this to me via Instagram this month, I knew I had to feature it on this playlist. It may have even bumped another song to September. This song, I’m not going to spell it again, is from one of the most popular Italian rock musicians in history. The lyrics are complete gibberish, but are stylized to sound like English in an American accent. Why? you may ask? During this time English, particularly American, music was extremely popular in Italy, and it was his belief that Italians would listen to literally anything that sounded American. It’s actually a good song, and if you didn’t know the story behind it, you would probably think it was just in another language you didn’t understand. The female vocalist on the recording is Adriano’s wife and Italian actress, Claudia Mori.

Handsome Boy Modeling School, Jack Johnson - “Breakdown” - 2004, Did you know you needed a remix of Jack Johnson’s, “Breakdown”? Me either, but this is good. I think it brings new life to a song that I absolutely ran into the ground back when it came out. (Handsome Boy was last featured on the June 2023 playlist)

Darondo, Dave Allison - “Didn’t I” - 1973 (remixed 2014) Darondo was a funk musician from Berkeley, CA that despite regularly opening for James Brown, never really took off because of label issues. In 2014, his biggest hit, “Didn’t I,” was reworked by a few Producers - Guts, Florent F, and Dave Allison. This is the Dave Allison Version. The original song is almost half as slow and definitely out of tune. The Guts version is more along the original tempo, but with a drum beat and new mix that picks it up a bit. The Florent F version is more chopped up than both of the other remixes, as well as tuned down. I think the Dave Allison version is the best of the three.