The ‘Fat Man’ Billy Stewart! Popular in the ’60s, he was a talented singer, songwriter and piano man discovered by Bo Diddley and signed to Chess Records.
From Washington DC, he started out in a group called The Rainbows (they don’t make band names like that anymore) which included Don Covay amongst it’s members, so you know he had been around the block before hitting the big time with songs like ‘Sitting in the Park’, ‘I Do Love You’ and ‘Summertime’.
In 1970 at the age of 33, he was killed in a car crash with three members of his band, but his music lives on and not just as material for hip hop producers hungry for new samples. For instance, ‘Sitting in my Car’ as been covered by a wide range of artists – 50 of them reggae singers and one of them a rapper (Slick Rick).
Here is ‘Cross My Heart’, released on Chess in 1967, and jacked by Just Blaze to produce Jay Electronica’s ‘Exhibit C’.
MP3: Billy Stewart – Cross My Heart | Buy
MP3: Jay Electronica – Exhibit C | Buy
Janini Panini
STOLEN RECORDS 