With all the diva drama surrounding
Aerosmith these past couple of weeks, well, a Barrelhouse Beat flashback is in order.
For four decades, Aerosmith has branded itself as
The Band That Will Not Die, and that's not all bad.
But, perhaps, the band wouldn't have made it past its "toxic twin" days of the 1970s if it wasn't for the genius of a producer named
Rick Rubin, a rap act named
Run-D.M.C. and an upstart urban record label called
Def Jam.
For people of my generation (I'm 35) this cover tune introduced two genres of music (hard/classic rock and hip-hop) as viable, powerful, legit forms of music. For me, it gave credibility to one genre that seemed "played out" and shoved me into another that was "inner-city."
(Not to mention the
Beastie Boys,
Public Enemy,
L.L. Cool J. and the other Rick Rubin-produced breakthrough acts of the mid-80s, and all the other hard-earned success Rubin garnered for music acts including the
Cult to
Red Hot Chili Peppers to
Johnny Cash to
Tom Petty to
Metallica. ... But I digress. Sorta.)
As a pre-teen, the fusion of rap and rock, old and new, proved to me that there was more to music than
Top 40,
MTV and popular radio, which was a near mind-blowing realization for me at the time. (What? You mean to tell me that "
The Next Time I Fall" by
Amy Grant and
Peter Cetera isn't the best song ever made?!? ... Heck no it isn't.)
The samples and rock song covers by hip-hop musicians weren't theft. Not to me. They opened a pathway for me to passionately discover a generation's worth of music that was -- until that point -- just "old people's record collections." (Ewwwww.)
... Even if I did wear sans-lace
Adidas sneakers and carry around a huge, silver-colored boom box. So what. I also danced as my band-geek cohorts blared the Beastie Boys' tune "
Brass Monkey" on their concert saxophones during school bus trips. That tune and the sample of
Wild Sugar's "
Bring It Here" introduced me to the much broader genre of funk. ... I was a sixth-grader. And I loved the
Beastie Boys,
Run-D.M.C.,
Metallica,
Public Enemy,
Elvis, the
Beatles,
James Brown, the
Stones,
Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. ... Didn't everyone?
Shouldn't everyone?
Anyyyywayyyy ... Back to topic: Aerosmith members
Steven Tyler and
Joe Perry both performed on this 1986 cover version by Run-D.M.C., produced by Rubin and released on Def Jam. In 1999, the two music acts even embarked on a successful world tour together.
"
Walk This Way" is a trademark Aerosmith tune, played today at nearly every live show it does. The song is from the 1975 hit album "
Toys in the Attic."
Link:
(*plink* My two cents.)
PLUS! Read the update on the status of Aerosmith at tulsaworld.com,
here.
