Jimmy Castor:

**remicks** · January 13th, 2009, 03:14 AM

*****

Manu Dibango had nothing on him .
This was out that same year 1972:

ITS JUST BEGUN Jimmy Castor Bunch

Jimmy Castor was born and grew up in The Bronx . The Latin influences of the streets of NYC are apparent in this release by him in 1967:

HEY LEROY YOUR MAMA'S CALLING YOU Jimmy Castor

Humour lead the way in many of The Castor Bunch's compositions and Jimmy Castor made a niche for himself in the funk/disco scene by leaning towards novelty themes often centered around grunting cavemen and party hardy women of size ....
:icon_cool:

*****

**Disco Funk** · January 13th, 2009, 05:21 PM

It's Just Begun was never released as a single, at least not that LP version. There was an earlier version, which sounded dirtier and rock-ish, but it still had the same arrangement, where the song breaks down mid-way into the drum and percussion break. The 72 version was much better sounding and to me, still sounds like a track way ahead of its time.

By the way, there was a 12in released a few years ago that featured an extended remix version of Its Just Begun and also an instrumental mix, both of which were faithful to the original mix. You can hear the instrumental mix from the 12inch on this radio show (click on 'Audio)

Radio show Funkology

Disco Funk

**remicks** · January 13th, 2009, 10:24 PM

*****

thanks for your info about IT'S JUST BEGUN DF ( you suppose they were being prophetic about disco's emergence in that dance song's title ??

)

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It occurs to me that even the most novice of DJs should have little trouble working these two songs together

:

HEY LEROY YOUR MAMAS CALLING YOU Jimmy Castor
from 19-66!

:icon_exclaim:

and

CALYPSO BREAKDOWN Ralph MacDonald

from 19-76!

:icon_cool::icon_cool:
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**Disco Funk** · January 14th, 2009, 09:17 AM

Yeah, that would make a good segue. Then you could mix back into this one

Here's the other song Jimmy Castor did which I think some people would mix into their early proto-disco sets

Also, did you know that the Castor bunch played on this track

Gary Byrd's Soul Travelin.

And one more thing, one of the Castor Bunch was also a member of another dance music group (it's the guy dancing in the front in the red shirt with the moustache - keyboardist Gerry Thomas)

I think he eventually left Castor to become a fulltime Fatbacker.

Disco Funk

**Disco Funk** · February 13th, 2009, 12:18 AM

No explanation needed:

Disco Funk

**Bernie** · February 13th, 2009, 08:42 AM

Disco Funk,

That last video above of Jimmy Castor doing "Just Begun" live was amazing. Thanks.

**Disco Funk** · February 13th, 2009, 06:04 PM

Glad you enjoyed it, Bernie! I was surprised to see that it's been up on the Tube for almost a year, and I didn't even spot it. I wonder what other funk treasures are hiding on that website.

I wonder how rare this performance is. He probably played the song in concert, but the song didn't get a single release from the LP. It was all about plugging Troglodyte.

The performance was an eye opener in terms of their ability to recreate the song live, which was very well done, but also on the outro, I always thought it was two screaming electric guitars, one on each channel. But the footage shows that Gerry Thomas (who I think was bald in Jimmy Castor's Bunch but wore the curly wig when performing with Fatback Band), is actually making one of the screaming guitar sounds with his trumpet. Must be a wah effect they put on it for that ending.

Disco Funk