We are one week away from the release of my newest mix, "The Entertainer", and it's release party at The Drake Hotel in Toronto on Friday, July 15th. Finishing off the mix inside my studio during beautiful summer weather has it's drawbacks, but I love what I do! I can't let you go into the weekend without this one remix, so get your boombox ready and let me give you some background on it.

One day when listening to "Slippin' Into Darkness" by War, I noticed that a riff late in the song was very similar to Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up". Sometimes these things just happen. After doing a bit of searching, I found out that Bob's tune was actually directly influenced by it. (http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=7608)

Coincidentally, shortly after putting two and two together, I played a show with War's harmonica man Lee Oskar at the memorial for our friend Bad News Brown in Montreal. I asked Lee about the similarities between the two songs and he confirmed that Marley wrote the song based on "Slippin...". They were on some tours together in the early 70s in Europe and the United States ["we played some soccer in between shows(!)"] during the spark of War's popularity and Bob was a big fan of theirs, so he expanded on their riff to create one of his most recognizable tunes.

Summertime music! Enjoy.
(Live bass by Devon Richardson | Artwork by Rhek http://www.sharksandhammers.com)