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James Walter Castor (January 23, 1940 – January 16, 2012) was an American
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
,
R&B, and
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
musician. He is credited with vocals, saxophone and composition. He is best known for songs such as "It's Just Begun", "
The Bertha Butt Boogie
"The Bertha Butt Boogie" is a 1975 song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. It achieved a No. 16 placing on the US pop chart and reached No. 22 on the US R&B chart. It was also a top 40 hit in Canada.
The record was a follow-up to the band's 1972 top ...
", and his biggest
hit single
A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single or simply a hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record' ...
, the million-seller "
Troglodyte (Cave Man)
"Troglodyte (Cave Man)", originally released as "Troglodite", is a 1972 novelty funk song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. In the US, it peaked at No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. ''Billboard'' ranked it ...
."
Castor has been described as "one of the most sampled artists in music history" by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
Musical career
He was born in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York, United States. He started a group called Jimmy and the Juniors, who in 1956 recorded the original version of "I Promise to Remember", which according to Castor
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...
did not want to promote.
George Goldner
George Goldner (February 9, 1918 – April 15, 1970) was an American record label owner, record producer and promoter who played an important role in establishing the popularity of rock and roll in the 1950s, by recording and promoting many ...
had the famous
doo-wop
Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...
group
The Teenagers
The Teenagers are an American music group, most noted for being one of rock music's earliest successes, presented to international audiences by DJ Alan Freed. The group, which made its most popular recordings with young Frankie Lymon as lead s ...
record it and it became their third hit single. Later, Castor was asked to join the Teenagers.
In late 1966, he released "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' You".
As a solo artist and leader of The Jimmy Castor Bunch (TJCB) in the 1970s, Castor released several successful albums and
singles
Singles are people not in a committed relationship.
Singles may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series
* ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe
* ''Singles'' ...
. TJCB hit their commercial peak in 1972 upon the release of their album, ''
It's Just Begun
''It's Just Begun'' is the second album by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, released in 1972 on RCA Records.''It's Just Begun at Allmusic/ref> " It's Just Begun" and "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" have each become staples in hip-hop sampling. Songs from the albu ...
'', which featured two
hit
Hit means to strike someone or something.
Hit or HIT may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities
* Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super''
* Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...
singles: the title track and "
Troglodyte (Cave Man)
"Troglodyte (Cave Man)", originally released as "Troglodite", is a 1972 novelty funk song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. In the US, it peaked at No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. ''Billboard'' ranked it ...
", the latter of which became quite popular in the US, hitting #6 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100. The track stayed on the chart for 14 weeks and on June 30, 1972, received a
gold disc
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
award from the
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
for sales of a million copies.
Castor released "It's Just Begun" in 1972. In 1973, he recorded a soprano saxophone instrumental cover of "
A Whiter Shade of Pale
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a song by the English rock band Procol Harum that was issued as their debut record on 12 May 1967. The single reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June and stayed there for six weeks. Without much promotion, i ...
" written by
Gary Brooker
Gary Brooker (29 May 1945 – 19 February 2022) was an English singer and pianist, and the founder and lead singer of the rock band Procol Harum.
Early life
Born in Hackney Hospital, East London, on 29 May 1945, Brooker grew up in Hackney ...
,
Keith Reid
Keith Stuart Brian Reid (born 19 October 1946 Allmusic.com biography by Jason Ankeny/ref>) is a lyricist and songwriter who wrote the lyrics of every song released by Procol Harum that was not previously recorded by someone else, with the excep ...
and
Matthew Fisher (from
Procol Harum
Procol Harum () were an English rock music, rock band formed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex in 1967. Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of the few singles to have List of best-selling singles, sold over ...
), on a tune inspired by J.S.Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 BWV1068 in his "Air on the G string".
Afrika Bambaataa
Lance Taylor (born on April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenc ...
said that "It's Just Begun" was very popular at South Bronx block parties in the 1970s. Later popular songs included "Bertha Butt Boogie", "Potential", "King Kong" and "A Groove Will Make You Move" in 1975 and 1976.
The Jimmy Castor Bunch included keyboardist/trumpeter Gerry Thomas, bassist Doug Gibson, guitarist Harry Jensen,
conga
The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). ...
player Lenny Fridle, Jr., and drummer Bobby Manigault.
Thomas also recorded with the
Fatback Band
The Fatback Band (later, simply Fatback) is an American funk and disco band that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. The Fatback Band is most known for their R&B hits, "(Do the) Spanish Hustle", "I Like Girls", "Gotta Get My Hands on Some (Mone ...
, leaving TJCB in the 1980s to exclusively record with them.
Death and legacy
Castor died of heart failure on January 16, 2012 in
Henderson, Nevada
Henderson is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, about southeast of downtown Las Vegas. It is the second largest city in Nevada, after Las Vegas, with an estimated population of 320,189 in 2019. The city is part of the Las Vegas Vall ...
, just a week short of his 72nd birthday.
Many of the group's tunes have been heavily
sampled
Sample or samples may refer to:
Base meaning
* Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set
* Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal
* Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of so ...
in films and in
hip-hop. In particular, the saxophone hook and groove from the title track of "It's Just Begun". For example
Ice-T sampled the track for the title track of his 1988 album
''Power''. Also, heavy sampled is the spoken word intro and groove from "
Troglodyte (Cave Man)
"Troglodyte (Cave Man)", originally released as "Troglodite", is a 1972 novelty funk song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. In the US, it peaked at No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. ''Billboard'' ranked it ...
" (namely, "What we're gonna do right here is go back..." and "Gotta find a woman, gotta find a woman").
Industrial hip hop
Industrial hip hop is a fusion genre of industrial music and hip hop.
History
1980s
The origins of industrial hip hop are in the work of Mark Stewart, Bill Laswell, and Adrian Sherwood. In 1985, former The Pop Group singer Mark Stewart releas ...
group
Tackhead
Tackhead (styled TACK>>HEAD, sometimes known as Fats Comet) is an industrial hip-hop group that was most active during the 1980s and early 1990s, and briefly reformed in 2004 for a tour. Their music occupies the territory where funk, dub, indus ...
covered the song "Just Begun" for the digital release of their album, ''
For the Love of Money
"For the Love of Money" is a soul/funk song that was written and composed by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Anthony Jackson; it was recorded by Philadelphia soul group The O'Jays for the album ''Ship Ahoy.'' Produced by Gamble and Huff for Phi ...
''.
Family
Castor's son, J-Cast, choose his stage name by using letters from Jimmy "J" and Castor "Cast". J-Cast released an album, ''J-Cast for President'', on June 24, 2009, which was popular in Japan.
Discography
Albums
Chart singles
Note: All credited to The Jimmy Castor Bunch unless otherwise stated.
Notes
*Note: Some other sources give different years of birth, between 1943 and 1947, though an obituary from ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' states: "James Walter Castor was born on January 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.)"
References
External links
Detailed biography* as Jimmy Castor
* as The Jimmy Castor Bunch
Entries at 45cat.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castor, Jimmy
1940 births
2012 deaths
20th-century African-American male singers
American male singers
African-American songwriters
American funk saxophonists
American male saxophonists
Singers from New York City
Smash Records artists
Songwriters from New York (state)
The Teenagers members
21st-century African-American people
American male songwriters
20th-century American saxophonists