All music uses a variety of sampling, or “taking a section of audio from another source… and then reworking it into… a new track,” as defined by the Central Music Institute. Genres such as hip-hop, jungle, house and drum and bass are built off of this foundation alone. Mainstream music has taken a liking to the usage of sampling, thanks to the pavement set by DJ Kool-Herc and his predecessors, though there never seems to be enough credit to the latter. As a matter of fact, one sample is so iconic that it has not only carried a number of music genres but also sprouted new genres for music itself. The root of that growth: “Amen, Brother” by The Winstons.
The Winstons were a short-lived, soul and funk band, made up of members Joe Phillips, Richard Lewis Spencer, Ray Maritano, Quincy Mattison, Phil Tolotta, Sonny Pekerol, J.Lee Zane and best known, Gregory C. Coleman. Their most notable song at the time was “Color Him Father” released in 1969. Their song “Amen, Brother” was a B-side, or, said by the Cambridge Dictionary, “the less important side” of “Color Him Father.” Though the A-side found its own success, Ellen Otzen’s article on BBC notes that “Amen, Brother went largely unnoticed at the time,” until something interesting happened.
At a timestamp of one minute and 26 seconds, The Winstons’ drummer, Gregory C. Coleman is given 6 seconds to himself for a simple four-bar drum break. A drum break, defined in Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton’s book, How to DJ Right, is a moment “where the song breaks into percussion… where the song calms down and creates drama by stripping away its elements… for the drummer,” (79). The beat itself is simple, starting off with two repeating bars before adding a snare delay in the third bar. Leading vocalist and band member, Richard Lewis Spencer claims that “they didn't have enough music for a whole track, so he decided to stretch it by adding a drum solo,” (Otzen) when creating the song. That little pocket of time, now known as the “amen break,” might have been the best play the band ever made.
The isolation of the amen break was a novelty, many taking note of how versatile the sample was. As a matter of fact, researchers at WhoSampled, a music site that recognizes and tracks down samples, found out that the break has been used “in more than 6,000 songs across various genres and styles,” says Tracklib. If anything, that’s only counting the songs on the surface; there are thousands, possibly even a million other tracks that use this break. Just take note of the rhythm and you’ll hear it somewhere. Expand your music tastes and maybe something will ring louder to you.
Image courtesy of Flickr
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