Monday, August 16, 2010

Eddie Who?

I heard the song "Eddie Who" once in the late 1980s and tried to no avail to hear it again ever since - until today when I found it on iTunes.

The entire song is just Eddie Harris giving his musical resume, but I got a kick out of it. In the fade-out Eddie Harris clarifies to an anonymous person that he is neither Eddie Lock-jaw Davis, Eddie Murphy, nor Eddie Cleanhead Vinson.

from Wikipedia:
Harris also came up with the idea of the reed trumpet, playing one for the first time at The Newport Jazz Festival of 1970 to mostly negative critical feedback. From 1970 to 1975, he experimented with new instruments of his own invention (the reed trumpet was a trumpet with a saxophone mouthpiece, the saxobone was a saxophone with a trombone mouthpiece, and the guitorgan was a combination of guitar and organ), with singing the blues, with jazz-rock (he recorded an album with Steve Winwood, Jeff Beck, Albert Lee, Ric Grech, Zoot Money, and other rockers). He also started singing and to perform comic R&B numbers like "That is Why You're Overweight" and "Eddie Who?".
more on Eddie Harris

Eddie Harris on saxophone, performs "Compared to What?"