Jimmy Castor (January 23, 1940 – January 16, 2012) – A Groove Will Make You Move (1975)
From his Supersound LP, this hot jam was written by Castor's drummer Ellwood Henderson, Jr., and not released as a single although it should have been.
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Jimmy Castor was a supremely talented singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist whose music is among the most-sampled of all time.
Following the success of their breakthrough LP It’s Just Begun in 1972, the Jimmy Castor Bunch released a string of albums on RCA and then Atlantic. None did nearly as well as It’s Just Begun, which had been powered by the novelty single “Troglodyte (Cave Man),” a #4 R&B and #6 pop hit that spent 14 weeks on the charts and sold over a million copies.
“Troglodyte (Cave Man)” introduced the character of Bertha Butt, who would re-appear in several future JCB songs. Notably “The Bertha Butt Boogie” from their 1974 LP Butt of Course…, which featured an even funkier track on the B-side of the single released in international markets, the great “E-Man Boogie.”
Despite the numerous novelty songs they recorded, the Jimmy Castor Bunch was a skilled, innovative, hardcore funk outfit. They not only produced some of the funkiest music of the 70s, but were versatile enough to create albums full of many different sounds. On the Butt of Course… LP, they blended funk with psychedelia on “Hallucinations” and stepped into Thom Bell-Linda Creed territory both with their jazz-infused cover of “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” and the beautiful original ballad “One Precious Word.”
In 1975, they released Supersound, their sixth studio LP and third for Atlantic. It was co-produced by Castor and John Pruitt, his songwriting partner and co-owner of their production company Castor-Pruitt Productions.
The album's first single was “King Kong - Part 1,” which landed at #23 R&B. Then came the funk bomb title track (with lyrics boasting Supersound was “more powerful than...Bertha Butt!”), which was released as a single in early 1976 with “Drifting” on the flip and reached #42 R&B.
But the album’s masterpiece was the non-single cut that opened its second side. “A Groove Will Make You Move” was written by Castor’s drummer, Ellwood Henderson, Jr., who co-arranged it with Castor. It was engineered by Tony Bongiovi, who co-produced early disco hits like “Dream World” by Don Downing, “I'll Be Holding On” by Al Downing, and Gloria Gaynor's “Never Can Say Goodbye.”
Like the rest of Supersound, it featured Henderson on drums and Gerry Thomas on keyboards, who was also a member of the Fatback Band and arranged horns and strings on several other superb Supersound tracks like the mellow instrumental “Drifting” and the beautiful slow jam “What's Best.” Jeffrey Grimes played guitar and sitar, Doug Gibson was on bass, Lenny Fridie played the triangle and congas, and Castor handled vocals, soprano sax, and timbales.
On February 14, 1975, the Jimmy Castor Bunch performed “A Groove Will Make You Move” live on Soul Train.
If all the great music on Supersound wasn’t enough, the back cover also revealed the origin story of the Everything Man, Castor’s superhero alter ego. “Super musician, super performer!”
#funk #soul #EverythingMan #JimmyCastor
Good read. Didn't know there was more than one jam that featured the Bertha Butt character. Fascinating.