Every once in a while, I’ll hear a song that catches my attention, and then I can’t resist going online to do some research. Like when I first heard Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and then finding out a few weeks later it was built around a sample of the 1971 hit “Are You My Woman?“ by the Chi-Lites. Or when I heard the background music to a Lincoln car commercial about 4 years ago and discovered it was a song called “Get A Move On” by Mr. Scruff, who sampled “Bird’s Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker)” by Moondog. Or just recently, when I dug into Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and read that they sampled “Nel Cimitero Di Tucson” by Gianfranco Reverberi, from the soundtrack of a 1968 Italian cowboy movie!
But of course, no one can beat Weird Al. His latest triumph: turning Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’” into “White and Nerdy” After more than two decades, he has not lost his touch.