Notes on Deconstruction
A belated introduction. Plus, looking for King Tim III, and a recent pickup
Apologies…in my haste to get this newsletter up and running at the start of the month, I didn’t take a moment to properly introduce it.
Here in my Oakland “cutting room,” I’m surrounded by paraphernalia: records, books, CDs, cassettes, magazines, posters, stickers, newspaper clippings, letters. Some of it has monetary value; much of it does not. Like any good Hoarders candidate, I’m constantly making plans to reduce this bulk to a manageable size. I’m comforted by the fact that there are others — music journalists like myself as well as collectors — with much bigger piles than mine.
As a writer, part of my job is to synthesize all this information into “content”: longform features, but more often reviews, essays, and listicles. Each object is a prompt, a method for generating ideas, uncovering facts, and unwinding threads both complete and unfinished, then using them to build a story I can sell, either for money or for online clout.
However, there’s also value in deconstructing that process of accumulation. These individual objects have meaning in and of themselves. It’s worth looking at them to admire their singular power as well as how they serve as ingredients for a finished piece.
Part of the challenge of being a collector is learning to distinguish between the purchases that mean something to you, and the ones that may catch your fancy for a moment, or because you believe they have monetary value. These meanings change all the time. One day, you find a 7-inch of a song you love. The next day, you realize the 7-inch doesn’t fit in your collection, doesn’t fit in your life, and you’re fine simply enjoying the song via a streaming service.
The politics of streaming services aside, the one thing I’ve learned from the preponderance of sounds and images that proliferate on the internet is that I’m more interested in information than acquisition. I don’t have interest in humblebragging about my stuff, whether it’s things I found online or in the wild, unless I can show how they illuminate a greater whole. Ultimately, this newsletter will bring a magnifying glass to the things I write.
Four years ago, I attempted a similar project on Instagram with far less initiative than this one. Unfortunately, an imposer account began imitating me, and Meta chose to do nothing about it. I can’t invest my time and energy into a social-media platform that has little interest in protecting user privacy unless the person is enough of a celebrity influencer to make a squawk worth paying attention to.
I’m aware of the debate around Substack, too. Time will tell if this newsletter will end in a similar cul-de-sac as Instagram, Twitter and so many others or lead somewhere different — and better.
The 20 Best Rap Singles of 1979
On April 16, I published my latest Humthrush.com best-of list, “The 20 Best Rap Singles of 1979.”
I began making these lists in 2020 with “The 100 Best Rap Singles of 1990.” The plan was to cover every year from 20 years ago over a 10-year span. Unfortunately, I skipped a few installments, so 2023 is about catching up.
Obviously, 1979 was all about the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” The song reached number four on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart, and number 36 on the Hot 100. It also topped the Cash Box R&B Singles chart.
Before “Rapper’s Delight,” there was “King Tim III (Personality Jock),” a collaboration between Fatback and their rapping hypeman from Harlem, Tim “King Tim III” Washington. The song originally appeared as the B-side of “You’re My Candy Sweet,” a single released in early August 1979 on Spring Records (with distribution by Polydor). After “King Tim III” took off, the single was re-released with it on the A-side.
Here’s a product review of Fatback’s XII, which features “King Tim III (Personality Jock).”
The success of “King Tim III” led Cash Box to profile Fatback in its New Faces to Watch section…even though the group debuted in 1968 and had just released its 12th album. “This purveyor of party-time funk music is just beginning to peak (sic) people’s interest nationally,” argued an unsigned article. However, Fatback is best known today for the funk hit “Backstrokin’,” which was released in 1980.
Here’s a live performance of “King Tim III.” Note the YouTube comment that claims King Tim III used to MC for “DJ Mac Love and DJ Prince” before joining Fatback, and that this clip was filmed at a 1979 Fatback concert in Savannah, Georgia. He brags that he’s 22, and asks the crowd if they like “reefer.”
Here’s an ad from the Louisville Courier-Journal for a November 1, 1980 show featuring Fatback, King Tim III, and Fatback Singers (aka Wild Sugar) at Louisville Gardens in Kentucky. Sylvester is the headliner.
Nearly a year after “King Tim III’s” release, Spring Records claimed that the single sold in excess of 500,000 copies. Spring vice-president Bill Spitalksy reasoned it would have been more successful if “white” pop stations played it. Lack of radio play — from “Black” and “white” stations alike — bedeviled rap music well into the 90s.
As for King Tim III, he signed with Spring for a solo single, “Charley Says! (Roller Boogie Baby).” Released in August 1980, it was unsuccessful, missing the Billboard charts and barely hitting Cash Box’s Black Contemporary chart at number 93. After that, he disappeared from the music industry. I can’t find any interviews with him online.
Pickups
A month or two ago, I found a copy of Jazz & Pop magazine. It features Roberta Flack on the cover.
Inside is a profile of Gil Scott-Heron by Nat Hentoff. Scott-Heron discusses his first novel, The Vulture, and his debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. He was 21 when Hentoff interviewed him. The article announced that Scott-Heron will be working with Brian Jackson on his second album, the yet-to-be released Pieces of a Man. The magazine also reprinted Scott-Heron’s poem, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
More later.