Edwin Birdsong: why wasn't I told earlier?

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Just found (via a kind friend) four albums worth of material and the blood is trickling from my ears. My GOD this is nice! Is he just criminally underacknowledged or am I just a dork for not finding this earlier? Fans? Hatas? Anybody?

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

pretty underacknowledged, but definitely some props in the disco/hip-hop world. I have the Salsoul single Rapper Dapper Snapper which is some awesome electro-boogie-funk, as well as some weird small label early 80s hip-hop/funk stuff that right now I'm blanking on.

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Edwin%20Birdsong.html

wow, he co-wrote Roy Ayers' Running Away...

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Cola Bottle Baby, which is to say "Harder Better Stronger Faster" is just incredible.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 10 September 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You seem to have struck gold, my friend! "Rapper Dapper Snapper" was sampled most proficiently by De La Soul on "Me Myself & I" firstly.
I have been after this "12" for ages without any luck still!!!

Shortly after this single though, his career trajectory took a downward slide, though he did write the classy "Turned On To You" for the Eighties Ladies in 1981, which became a sorta rare-groove classic.

Has anyone heard his early '70s albums ("What It Is" and "Supernatural") - as I hear they were a little Mandrill-sounding: the rock/funk hybrid variety)?

He also went Philly-soul ("Edwin Birdsong") and disco ("Dance Of Survival" in the mid-to-late '70s.

"Son Of A Rapper Dapper Snapper" came out in 1985: haven't heard this one though. No relation to Cindy Birdsong either!

― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Saturday, 11 September 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeah, I heard Rapper Dapper Snapper on a mix on the net and spent a year looking for it, till I found it somewhere for 5 bucks. It usually goes for much more then that. I kept checking all these Salsoul best-of comps but it never made the cut.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 11 September 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

is Cola Bottle Baby acknowledged on "Discovery"s writing credits?

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 11 September 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I got hooked up with mp3s of son of rds, what it is, supernatural, funtaztik, the eponymous album and dance of survival. Happy to drop a track or two by email if you're desperate to find one.

And I too am curious if he's getting paid by DP for that sample. It really bummed me out; Harder/Better is my favorite Daft Punk track and finding that it was basically a wholesale lift lowered my appreciation of them considerably.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Saturday, 11 September 2004 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

sample? i'd hardly call it that!!!

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 11 September 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

"Cola Bottle Shake, Baby" or "Cola Bottle Shape, Baby"? I can't hear it.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Saturday, 8 March 2008 15:50 (seventeen years ago)

five years pass...

Another guy hearing Cola Bottle Baby for the first time here, having had no idea that Harder relied so heavily on a single sample.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 28 January 2014 21:41 (twelve years ago)

right?

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 January 2014 21:46 (twelve years ago)

For more obscure tracks that are pretty much a whole lot better than the tunes Daft Punk sampled them for, please see Little Anthony & The Imperials "Can You Imagine", George Duke "I Love You More", and Breakwater "Release the Beast"

Edwin Birdsong tho, goddamn, especially this cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykPF2EGPMeU

― sheesh, Wednesday, 29 January 2014 05:24 (twelve years ago)

Edwin Birdsong, I have been looking all over for you, I just didn't realize it

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 29 January 2014 05:32 (twelve years ago)

six years pass...

Been listening to the s/t album on Spotify again; what a wizard. Belated RIP as of 2019.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Thursday, 19 March 2020 15:05 (five years ago)

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