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The E-Man, Jimmy Castor, Has Passed Away [Post a Comment]
I was stunned to find this out yesterday afternoon on the Soul Patrol Mailing List but did not get the chance to blog about it until now: Jimmy Castor, the man behind such quirky funk hits as Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Calling You, It’s Just Begun, The Bertha Butt Boogie, and Troglodyte (Cave Man), passed away yesterday at the age of 64.
Like most people who have a passing familiarity with his music, I mainly only knew of those quirky, novelty hits from him. That is, until 2007, when I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Soul Patrol Pre-Convention, then the actual Convention itself, in Philadelphia, PA. A very nice, cool guy who was down to earth and friendly but who also got to tell the tale of his longevity in the music business.
He was known as the E-Man, or “Everything Man” because he didn’t just do novelty songs with his band The Jimmy Castor Bunch. He played saxophone, he played on soul ballads for other artists, he replaced Frankie Lymon in Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, he worked with the Fatback Band, he and his band did everything from soul to funk to jazz to doowop. And, yes, he had his novelty hits about Leroy and about Bertha Butt.
Whenever you listen to an old school Black station and hear the sampled line “What we’re gonna do is go back, way back … back into time,” you’re hearing Jimmy Castor (from the hit Troglodyte).
Rest in peace, Jimmy Castor.
I was stunned to find this out yesterday afternoon on the Soul Patrol Mailing List but did not get the chance to blog about it until now: Jimmy Castor, the man behind such quirky funk hits as Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Calling You, It’s Just Begun, The Bertha Butt Boogie, and Troglodyte (Cave Man), passed away yesterday at the age of 64.
Like most people who have a passing familiarity with his music, I mainly only knew of those quirky, novelty hits from him. That is, until 2007, when I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Soul Patrol Pre-Convention, then the actual Convention itself, in Philadelphia, PA. A very nice, cool guy who was down to earth and friendly but who also got to tell the tale of his longevity in the music business.
He was known as the E-Man, or “Everything Man” because he didn’t just do novelty songs with his band The Jimmy Castor Bunch. He played saxophone, he played on soul ballads for other artists, he replaced Frankie Lymon in Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, he worked with the Fatback Band, he and his band did everything from soul to funk to jazz to doowop. And, yes, he had his novelty hits about Leroy and about Bertha Butt.
Whenever you listen to an old school Black station and hear the sampled line “What we’re gonna do is go back, way back … back into time,” you’re hearing Jimmy Castor (from the hit Troglodyte).
Rest in peace, Jimmy Castor.
Posted by T-Mad on 01/17/2012 at 9:39 AM
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