Groove Me
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". "Groove Me" is a song written and recorded by R&B singer King Floyd. Released from his eponymous album in late 1970, it was a crossover hit, spending four non-consecutive weeks at number-one on Billboard Soul chart and peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.[1] In Canada the song reached No. 11.[2]
The song was recorded and produced by Wardell Quezergue at Malaco Records' Jackson, Mississippi recording studios during the same session as another Quezergue-produced song, Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff".[3] "Groove Me" was originally released as the B-side to Floyd's "What Our Love Needs" on the Malaco subsidiary Chimneyville. When New Orleans disc jockey George Vinnett started playing the B-side, the song began meriting attention, and as the record emerged as a local smash, Atlantic Records scooped up national distribution rights.[3]
Personnel
No credits are listed for the Malaco studio musicians on the record. According to Rob Bowman's liner notes from the 1999 box set, The Last Soul Company: Malaco, A Thirty Year Retrospective, the musicians for this session included:
- Jimmy Honeycutt – saxophone
- Bob Cheesman – trumpet
- Wardell Quezergue – organ
- Jerry Puckett – guitar
- Vernie Robbins – bass
- James Stroud – drums
During this time at Malaco, horn lines were typically played by saxophonist Hugh Garraway and trumpeter Perry Lomax.[4]
Origin
According to Rob Bowman, Canadian professor of ethnomusicology, "Groove Me" had been inspired by a young college student who had worked about twenty feet away from Floyd at an east L.A. box factory. In Floyd's words: "She'd just watch me and smile at me all day. When I went to the water fountain, she would make it her purpose to come up to the water fountain. But, I was so shy. So, I decided one day that I was gonna write this poem and give it to her and I wrote 'Groove Me.' Believe it or not, after I finished it she never came back to work. It blew me away. So, I never gave her the poem. Man, I'd sure like to meet her one day just to thank her!"[4]
Cover versions
- The Blues Brothers covered the song in their hit 1978 album Briefcase Full of Blues, giving the song a Jamaican reggae feel.
- In 1979, Fern Kinney, who sang backing vocals on King Floyd's original version, released a disco version of the song on her album Groove Me, which reached No. 6 on the Billboard dance chart.[5] In Canada the song reached No. 20.[6]
- In 2002, Angie Stone covered the song in the soundtrack for the movie Austin Powers in Goldmember.
References
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