I guess it would have been Walk This Way by Run-DMC. That’s probably the earliest example of a song which uses a sample from another song as its basis. In this case, Run-DMC’s Walk This Way is primarily made up of a sample of Walk This Way by Aerosmith — the song they’re covering.
Next came Licensed To Ill by Beastie Boys and its familiar Led Zeppelin breaks. But really, the album that blew my mind was the Beasties’ 1989 tour-de-force Paul’s Boutique. The whole record is samples. It demonstrated just how great the process can be — taking cool, slightly obscure samples and working them into new songs, either as decoration or as the foundation for the entire track. My immediate takeaway was that the Beastie Boys must have the best record collections ever.
For years I’d keep hearing the songs they sampled in the wild — Draw Your Brakes from The Harder They Come Soundtrack, Sharon by David Bromberg, That Lady by The Isley Brothers and — of course — Superfly by Curtis Mayfield.
I love when this happens. A cool one happened for me a few months ago when I was tempted by an album called Odetta Sings by Odetta Gordon because it contained covers of both Elton John’s Take Me To The Pilot and Paul McCartney’s Every Night. I got the thing home and put it on the turntable. The song right after Every Night is an original called Hit Or Miss. I recognized the bass lick right away. It’s a slowed-down version of Air’s Brakes On. Rather, Air sampled it and sped it up. Compare both versions below:
So, I decided to put together a fun playlist of songs which use a sample as their basis — the main root of the song. The kind of songs where fans of the sampled version will hopefully be surprised to hear the original.
Enjoy!
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
