Blow Your Whistle – Soul Searchers

“Blow Your Whistle”, one of the Soul Searchers’ greatest hits and most infamous Bboy Sounds, found itself in some latter-day Hip-hop samples yet the original is hard to compete with:

From the 1974 “Salt of the Earth” LP by Soul Searchers, led by the infamous Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown, “Blow Your Whistle” shares the tracklist with Hip-hop foundational standard “Ashley’s Roachclip“, whose drumline formed the basis of countless Hip-hop classics including Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full“.

Imprisoned for murder in his early years, Chuck Brown attained a guitar by trading cigarettes in prison, so the story goes, eventually getting free and finding his way and becoming a hallmark of Soul, another symbol in the human experience, going from the very low to the very high.

From a Washington Post article on Chuck Brown:

“He was a symbol of D.C. manhood, back in the day, because of the authority that he spoke with,” says Darryl Brooks, a local promoter who worked with Brown across the decades. “He just spoke from a perspective that black men could understand.”

Some further background on Mr. Chuck Brown from GlobalRhythm.net:

Washington, DC’s streets can be a parallel universe, where disco and soul didn’t evolve into rap, and then pop, where live music is still the thing—where kids save up for congas and guitars instead of turntables. Perhaps the least-discovered of America’s fiercely regional music scenes, three decades after its inception go-go music is still the soul of black Washington, and Chuck Brown its creator and eminence grise.

Though he’d prefer you call him “Godfather.”

“My fans gave that to me, but I can think of no better reward,” says Chuck of his adopted nickname. Speaking in his typical aw-shucks manner at a recording studio in suburban Maryland (where a long-rumored new studio album is nearing completion), Brown is clearly proud of the scene that has grown up around him. “Oh, the sound of Washington is go-go,” he says, “and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Rest in Peace to the great Chuck Brown!