VIDEO / DVD / LASERDISC DISCOGRAPHY
 

Sweet Sweetbacks Badasssss Song – Movie 1971
Stax CD – CDSXE 103, LP – SXD 103
EWF recorded the score for Melvin Van Peebles’ vanguard movie, Sweet Sweetbacks Badasssss Song (a forerunner to Shaft) for Stax Records.
[NB! VHS NTSC format]
Sweet Sweetbacks Badasssss Song, a Melvin Van Peebles’ production, was the first movie in this genre which turned out such dynamic movies and soundtracks as Shaft. Sweetback was released in 1971 and was the first film to feature a mostly-black cast and a black hero. Despite the resistance from The Motion Picture rating board, whose all-white members rated the film "X", it grossed over $10 million at the box office in the first week of release. Raising questions of race, violence and corruption, the film captured the imagination of many Americans and featured an effective and fitting soundtrack.
Van Peebles’ action-packed story involves a black pimp who finds himself in trouble when he kills two white policemen who brutalize one of his militant friends. Melvin plays the lead character, with his son Mario in a supporting role. The father-son duo have had success with other political movies such as Panther, but this Sweetback remains the touchstone of Blaxploitation’s repertoire.
The soundtrack comes from the young EWF, and is a sure early sign of the group’s appeal and eventual success. In this early recording they present an eclectic mixture of fast and furious soul and jazz. You’ll notice the song titles alone are eye catching.
01. Sweetback losing his cherry
02. Sweetback getting it uptight and preaching it so hard the bourgeois reggin angels in heaven turn around
03. Come on feet
04. Sweetback’s theme
05. Hoppin’ John / Voices / Mojo woman / Voices Sanra Z / Voices
06. Reggin hanging on in there as best they can / Voices won’t bleed me
07. The man tries running his usual game but Sweetback’s Jones is so strong he wastes the hounds (Yeay! Yeah! and besides that will be coming back takin’ names and collecting dues)
 

Shining Star – aka That’s the Way of the World – Movie 1975
Directed by Sig Shore [EWF did the soundtrack and a little acting]
What’s it all about:
Fred den Hollander in The Netherlands has actually a copy of it. He says that it, as a movie, it’s no good, but of course a collector’s item for all fans.
It’s about the record company business. A talented producer named Buckmaster (played by Harvey Keitel) hears a young beginning band and wants to produce their first album. The guys are of course our friends EWF. In the movie they are called "The Group" and Maurice has a speaking role as the leader.
While Buckmaster is producing the album, his boss (Ed Nelson) orders him to produce a band called "The Pages" (A family band in the Carpenters style, only much worse). During the movie Buckmaster learns about the deceiving world of recordcompany business (People keep telling him "that’s the way of the world").
EWF are performing an instrumental version of "That’s the way ..", and "Happy feelin’" is done twice. Verdine is seen being lifted up in the air while still playing his bass, and there is Freddie with his rotating drumset.
Maurice says: "This guy Sig Shore who had done the movie Superfly came to see us about doing a film. We decided to do the soundtrack. We were in the movie, trying to act. The movie flopped after tree days. But the album stood on its own. It was our time: the momentum had been building through the previous albums, through our live shows. We’d been a community band. That’s The Way Of The World put us in the mainstream."

 

Gunnar Homdrum 1996 © 2005