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A sample from Oh Calcutta by The Meters makes 1 Thing by Amerie the tune of 2005…..

The Meters - Oh, Calcutta!

So, as I was saying…

One of my favourite tracks of last year was 1 Thing by Amerie. I was very glad when the listeners of Gilles Peterson’s radio show agreed with me and voted it the best track of 2005 in his annual “All Winners” chart.

As you probably know it was produced by Rich Harrison, who also put together Crazy In Love by Beyonce and Jay-Z. That particular track used a sample from the Chi-Lites track Are You My Woman?, and its pretty recognisable as such. With 1 Thing, Rich Harrison was much more sly. The whole track is based on a tiny little snippet from a track called Oh Calcutta by The Meters. I managed to find this out due to a Canadian blog called penmachine.com.

What I still couldn’t do was manage to get hold of the track itself (The Meters one, that is). It came from an album called Look-Ka Py Py, that was available on CD on Amazon, but seemed impossible to track down on vinyl. Then, in New York, I was browsing the racks in the excellent Bleecker Street Records (on Bleecker Street, funnily enough) and there it was - in all its glory. The Meters - Look-Ka Py Py on vinyl. For a very reasonable price.

Of such things are very good days made of!

As are days which feature the wonder that is the video for the track that Rich Harrison made with that sample - the very excellent 1 Thing by the very wonderful Amerie…