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| The time they really committed to the word association. |
I apologize in advance for this post on the grounds that, it’s pretty much: a handful of dudes put an actual shit-ton of music and over 30 years. They might have done it under a couple different names, some key members came and went (but only after 14 years), but this basic story here isn’t more complicated than talented professional musicians releasing a ton of material and landing a hit somewhere in the early middle. But, because I have a format.
The Hit
The Crusaders’ “Street Life” came out in late 1979 and, based on all the one-hit wonders I’ve heard around it and my general sense of the mainstream sound of the era, something close to out of nowhere. It’s less than it doesn’t sound like its time - between the vocal style (especially with the lonely opening), the entire rhythm underlay, the pulse of electric organ, the funk guitar, the “warmth” of the production, it very much does - but that fucker’s north of 11 minutes long and I never saw a radio edit (even the Youtube clip gets within a few tics of 10 minutes). That didn’t stop it from breaking into the Top 10 on the R&B charts and sneaking as high as No. 36 on Billboard’s Top 100. (Fans in the UK lifted as high as No. 5.) The album did all right too. No. 18 on the pop charts ain’t bad.
Well, that takes care of that.
The Rest of the Story
“This group took the blues-based saturation of Texas, and melded that with the gospel and soul from the church…”
- Jake Feinberg, in an interview with Wilton Felder (which puts it sometime before September 27, 2015)
The story begins with three friends who attended high school together - Joe Sample (piano), Wilton Felder (tenor sax, at least then), and Nesbert “Stix” Hooper forming a band they called The Swingsters in 1954. It continues with Sample checking out for a couple years to study piano at Texas Southern University - where he definitely met Wayne Henderson (trombone), and might have met Hubert Laws (flute) and Henry Wilson (bass). After taking a head-count, they updated their name to the Modern Jazz Sextet and continued to build their name as a hard bop act. After introducing some R&B influences to their sound, they updated their name to the Nighthawks and/or Nite Hawks, and, for those wondering at home, nearly all of these notes will be chronological and, yes, most of it comes from Wikipedia’s entry on The Crusaders. I had what I had to work with and…mostly lucid as Felder was through it, that Feinberg interview felt too much like the latter badgering the former for what he wanted to get out of him.
The Hit
The Crusaders’ “Street Life” came out in late 1979 and, based on all the one-hit wonders I’ve heard around it and my general sense of the mainstream sound of the era, something close to out of nowhere. It’s less than it doesn’t sound like its time - between the vocal style (especially with the lonely opening), the entire rhythm underlay, the pulse of electric organ, the funk guitar, the “warmth” of the production, it very much does - but that fucker’s north of 11 minutes long and I never saw a radio edit (even the Youtube clip gets within a few tics of 10 minutes). That didn’t stop it from breaking into the Top 10 on the R&B charts and sneaking as high as No. 36 on Billboard’s Top 100. (Fans in the UK lifted as high as No. 5.) The album did all right too. No. 18 on the pop charts ain’t bad.
Well, that takes care of that.
The Rest of the Story
“This group took the blues-based saturation of Texas, and melded that with the gospel and soul from the church…”
- Jake Feinberg, in an interview with Wilton Felder (which puts it sometime before September 27, 2015)
The story begins with three friends who attended high school together - Joe Sample (piano), Wilton Felder (tenor sax, at least then), and Nesbert “Stix” Hooper forming a band they called The Swingsters in 1954. It continues with Sample checking out for a couple years to study piano at Texas Southern University - where he definitely met Wayne Henderson (trombone), and might have met Hubert Laws (flute) and Henry Wilson (bass). After taking a head-count, they updated their name to the Modern Jazz Sextet and continued to build their name as a hard bop act. After introducing some R&B influences to their sound, they updated their name to the Nighthawks and/or Nite Hawks, and, for those wondering at home, nearly all of these notes will be chronological and, yes, most of it comes from Wikipedia’s entry on The Crusaders. I had what I had to work with and…mostly lucid as Felder was through it, that Feinberg interview felt too much like the latter badgering the former for what he wanted to get out of him.
