Jimmy Castor, Etta James; Two Music Legends Gone on to Glory
Sunday, 22 January 2012 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 26 January 2012 16:56
Music Great Jimmy Castor Dies
The world has lost a music giant.
The New York Times reports that James Walter Castor, best known as Jimmy Castor, died on Monday, January 16,2012, in Henderson, Nevada. He was 71.
Jimmy Castor was a singer, instrumentalist and songwriter whose mastery of genres from doo-wop to Latin soul to funk, and instruments including saxophone and bongos earned him the title Everything Man.
According to Castor’s son, Jimmy Jr., the cause of death was heart failure.
Mr. Castor grew up in Harlem and Washington Heights with the legendary rock ’n’ roll singer Frankie Lymon. Legendary musician, James Mtume, when recounting Castor’s life on WRKS-FM’s Open Line show stated that Castor often substituted for Frankie Lymon at concerts when Lymon couldn’t make it. Mtume elaborated that back then most people only heard the artists on records and didn’t know what the artists actually looked like. And, since their voices were similar, it worked.
Mr. Castor soon started his own group, Jimmy and the Juniors, and wrote the first song it recorded, “I Promise to Remember.” Mr. Lymon and the Teenagers made it a Top 10 rhythm-and-blues hit for themselves in the summer of 1956.
By the 1960s, Mr. Castor, an African-American, had gained recognition for his version of the Latin soul sound that emerged as Puerto Ricans joined blacks in Upper Manhattan. In 1966 he had a hit on Smash Records, “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You.” The melody was calypso-inflected, the groove was Latin and the liner notes were bilingual.
With another band, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, he moved on to funk, combining a big beat with spirited storytelling on records like “Troglodyte (Cave Man)” on RCA, which hit No. 6 on the pop charts in 1972 and sold a million copies. Another hit was “The Bertha Butt Boogie” in late 1974.
Mr. Castor’s greatest influence may have come with the advent of hip-hop music and culture, when disc jockeys began using snippets of his earlier funk hits. In the 1983 movie “Flashdance” a sample of “It’s Just Begun,” the title track of his first album, was used in the break-dance “battle” scene. His work has been sampled numerous times by hip-hop artists.
Richard Colon, who is professionally known as Crazy Legs and who is president of the Rock Steady Crew, a premier break-dance group that used Mr. Castor’s songs, said of Mr. Castor in an interview, “People have been impacted by him and don’t even know it.”
A sampling of the list include: Mos Def, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Eric B and Rakim, N.W.A., Big Daddy Kane, Jungle Bros. (the piano riff in "J Beez Comin' Through"), the Beastie Boys ("Hold It, Now Hit It" features a sample of Castor screaming, "Yo, Leroy!"). Castor's "The Bertha Butt Boogie," a kinda-sorta sequel to "Troglodyte," makes an appearance in Ice Cube's track "Friday." And Kanye West used the Jimmy Castor Bunch's version of "I Just Wanna Stop" to build his early track "We Don't Care."
James Walter Castor was born on Jan. 23, 1940, in Manhattan. (His son said that for years he had let others assume he was far younger than he was, by as much as seven years.) After his song “I Promise to Remember” became a hit for Mr. Lymon, Mr. Castor used his windfall to move his family to a better apartment. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art, attended the City College of New York for two years majoring in accounting and minoring in music, and started another band.
While melding Latin and African-American forms in songs like “Southern Fried Frijoles,” he played bar mitzvahs for Harlem’s still-large Jewish population.
Mr. Castor made 16 albums and much of his work can be viewed on YouTube. But he began having trouble finding work in the 1980s. He lived in New Jersey before moving to Nevada in 1996.
In addition to his son Jimmy Jr., Mr. Castor is survived by his wife, Sandi; another son, Jason; two daughters, April Vargas and Sheli Castor; and eight grandchildren.
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Legendary R&B Singer Etta James Dies at 73
The legendary R&B singer, Etta James, died Friday, January 20, 2012, at a Riverside hospital of complications from leukemia. She was 73.
The entertainer, known for such hits as At Last, Tell Mama and Loser Weepers.
Born Jamesetta Hawkins on Jan. 25, 1938, she began singing gospel in her church choir as a child and recorded her first album in 1954, at age 16.
The Los Angeles City Council adjourned its meeting Friday in memory of James, who began singing as a child at St. Paul Baptist Church in South Los Angeles, where she was noticed by influential jazz pianist "Professor" James Earl Hines around the age of 5 or 6, according to Councilwoman Jan Perry.
"Her rich voice influenced generations of singers who came after her, from Tina Turner to Bonnie Raitt to Christina Aguilera," Perry told her council colleagues.
Flowers were placed on James' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard late Friday morning.
James had a prosperous solo career through the 1950s, and despite battles with heroin addiction, hit her peak in the 1960s, recording popular ballads that included her signature At Last.
During her 40-plus-year career, she won four Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards and toured with such notables as Little Richard and Otis Redding. She earned a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Her early career was depicted in the 2008 film Cadillac Records, which portrayed the lives of some of America's music legends. James was played by Beyonce Knowles, who sang "At Last" for the first dance of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama after the president's 2009 inauguration.
James had harsh words back then for Beyonce's performance, which James' son would later attribute to dementia.
Beyonce issued a statement calling James' death "a huge loss."
"Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time," she said. "I am so fortunate to have met such a queen. Her musical contribution will last a lifetime."
Beyonce said playing James "taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist. When she effortlessly opened her mouth, you could hear her pain and triumph. Her deeply emotional way of delivering a song told her story with no filter. She was fearless, and had guts."
James appeared on national television for the last time in 2009 in an episode of Dancing with the Stars, during which she sang.