Deep Album Cuts Vol. 353: Kool & The Gang
Kool & The Gang are nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, alongside Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Eric B. & Rakim, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Jane's Addiction, Lenny Kravitz, Oasis, Sinead O'Connor, Ozzy Osbourne, Sade, and A Tribe Called Quest.
Kool & The Gang album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Sea Of Tranquility
Kool & The Gang album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Sea Of Tranquility
2. Pneumonia (live)
3. N.T. (live)
4. Soul Vibrations
5. North, East, South, West
6. Heaven At Once
7. You Don't Have To Change
8. Jungle Jazz
9. Cosmic Energy
10. L-O-V-E
11. The Force
12. It's All You Need
13. Got You Into My Life
14. Night People
15. Stop!
16. As One
17. Rollin'
18. Surrender
19. Broadway
Track 1 from Kool and the Gang (1969)
Track 2 from Live At The Sex Machine (1971)
Track 3 from Live At PJ's (1971)
Track 4 from Music Is The Message (1972)
Track 5 from Good Times (1972)
Track 6 from Wild And Peaceful (1973)
Track 7 from Light Of Worlds (1974)
Track 8 from Spirit Of The Boogie (1975)
Track 9 from Love & Understanding (1976)
Track 10 from Open Sesame (1976)
Track 11 from The Force (1977)
Track 12 from Everybody's Dancin' (1978)
Track 13 from Ladies' Night (1979)
Track 14 from Celebrate! (1980)
Track 15 from Something Special (1981)
Track 16 from As One (1982)
Track 17 from In The Heart (1983)
Track 18 from Emergency (1984)
Track 19 from Forever (1986)
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has never had a lot of room for acts associated with disco. The Bee Gees and Donna Summer got in, while Chic was nominated over and over without getting in, and the Hall eventually gave Nile Rodgers a Musical Excellence award and stopped nominating his band. So I don't know if Kool & The Gang will get in, but as I put together this playlist, I became more and more impressed with the band's talent and catalog, and if I was making a ballot they'd be on it. Bassist Robert "Kool" Bell is the only member from the band's classic years who's still with Kool & The Gang today, and only a handful of guys who were in the band in the '70s, including vocalist James "J.T." Taylor, are still alive, it'd be cool for them to be able to receive that honor now.
Of course, Kool & The Gang started in the '60s, long before disco existed, and they slowly evolved and combined jazz, funk, soul, disco and pop over the course of a couple decades. I have to admit I grew up mostly knowing ubiquitous hits like "Celebration" and kind of took for granted that they weren't a very interesting group, but the musicianship and variety on their records is crazy. There are some silly songs on here, like "The Force," released just a few months after Star Wars dominated the box office, but there are also some incredibly funky shit. I knew that some of their hits had been sampled in big rap songs, but I was a little astonished at how much their more obscure early work had inspired famous songs, and ended up making that the focal point of this playlist, and I was able to cram in one track each from their first couple decades (although they've made about 9 more albums since their last significant commercial success in the mid-'80s).
"Sea of Tranquility" was heavily interpolated on D'Angelo's "Send It On." "Pneumonia" was sampled on Ice Cube's "You Can't Face Me/JD's Gafflin'." My jaw just about dropped about 3 minutes into "N.T." when Ronald Bell's solo suddenly turns into the sax loop from Nas's "Ain't Hard To Tell." The main horn riff on "Soul Vibrations" was sampled on Joe Budden's "Pump It Up." "Heaven At Once" was sampled on the Fugees' "Nappy Heads." "North, East, South, West" was sampled on Quasimoto's "Return of the Loop Digga." "You Don't Have To Change" was sampled on Pete Rock's "We Roll." Even when Kool & The Gang were kind of riffing on their previous hits for album filler, they came up with killer grooves worth sampling. "Jungle Jazz" is just an extended vamp on "Jungle Boogie," but it has a monster drum beat that was memorably sampled on Jade's "Don't Walk Away."
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