Artist:The Nite-Liters
Song:K-Jee
Album:This Is Funk
Music fans and especially R&B fans should be familiar with the 70s band The New Birth and hits like I Can Understand It and Dream Merchant. But you may not know that they started out as the instrumental band The Nite-Liters and they scored an R&B hit with the 1971 single K-Jee. The guys behind The Nite-Liters were Harvey Fuqua and his partner Vernon Bullock. Fuqua was an R&B legend first as leader of the doo wop group The Moonglows and then as a Motown producer. Fuqua wrote and produced all the music for The New Birth. The other founding member was saxophonist Tony Churchill. The Nite-Liters released a couple of singles in the 60s. Then they signed with RCA Records in 1970. The album The Nite-Liters was released in 1970 followed by the 1971 album Morning, Noon & The Nite-Liters. The single K-Jee reached #39 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #17 on the R&B Singles chart. It was a surprise hit. Fuqua produced K-Jee and wrote it with guitarist Charles Hearndon. You can get K-Jee on this 3CD various artists comp from the British label Union Square. Then Bullock added singer Allan Frye and called the new group The New Birth. At first they were going to keep both bands going. But then Bullock added brothers Leslie and Melvin Wilson and Ann Bogan of the group Love, Peace and Happiness. They decided to end The Nite-Liters and just have one band. So I guess it could be said that K-Jee is a forgotten funk classic. Here's The Nite-Liters performing K-Jee.
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