Jimmy Castor, 1947-2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNS42Na2mpc

New York singer, saxophonist and band leader Jimmy Castor died yesterday of as-yet-unknown causes. The very funky Castor took Frankie Lymon’s place in the doo-wop group The Teenagers in 1957 (when he was not yet a teenager). And he went on to solo success with “Hey, Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You,” which has been sampled a lot, notably on the Beastie Boys’ “Hold It Now, Hit It,” and which also seems, pretty clearly, to have been source material for Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard.” Castor had his biggest success in the early ’70s, with his group The Jimmy Castor Bunch. Samples of the above “Troglodyte (Caveman)” and the title track from the 1972 album It’s Only Just Begun have been used in too many rap songs to count.