Today is the 28th day of Black History Month. As we go through the month, I’m going to talk about a collection of Black artists. It’ll be fairly comprehensive and eclectic list — although it won’t be a complete list.
So far I’ve talked about:
- Rick James, who was born 76 years ago on February 1
- OutKast‘s Big Boi, who celebrated his 49th birthday on February 1
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe
- John Lee Hooker
- Patti LaBelle
- The Temptations‘ second and longest tenured lead vocalist Dennis Edwards, who was born 81 years ago on February 4
- Tina Turner
- Aretha Franklin
- Bobby Brown, who celebrated his 55th birthday on February 5
- Bob Marley, who was born 79 years ago on February 6
- The Supremes
- J. Dilla, who was born 50 years ago on February 7
- Queen Latifah
- Black Moon, DJ Evil Dee and Buckshot
- Dionne Warwick
- Big Mama Thornton
- Evelyn “Champagne” King
- Bad Brains
- Fishbone
- Grace Jones
- TLC
- Maceo Parker, who celebrated his 81st birthday on February 14
- SWV
- Meshell Ndegeocello
- Ice T, who celebrated his 66th birthday on February 16
- Dr. Dre, who celebrated his 59th birthday on February 18
- Seal, who celebrated his 61st birthday on February 19
- The great Smokey Robinson also celebrated his 84th birthday on February 19
- John Coltrane
- Nina Simone, who was born 91 years ago on February 21
- Chaka Khan
- Mary J. Blige
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Erykah Badu
- Luther Vandross
- Jimi Hendrix
Pioneering garage rock/punk rock outfit Death have what may arguably be one of the most interesting and unique backstories I’ve come across — and it’s always worth retelling, especially during Black History Month: Siblings Bobby (bass, vocals), David (guitar) and Dannis Hackney started the band in Detroit in 1971 as a R&B and funk band, then known as Rock Fire Funk Express. (Can you get anymore 1971 than that, y’all? I doubt it!)
As the story goes, The Hackney Brothers’ lives were transformed after they caught The Who and Alice Cooper live. David, the youngest of the trio pushed for a hard-rock sound that unbeknownst to them at the time, managed to presage both the Sex Pistols and the Punk Explosion of 1977 by handful of years.
Like countless bands around the world, the siblings practiced and recorded early demos in their home, and played their earliest gigs from their garage. After their father died in an accident in 1974, David Hackney convinced the brothers to change the band’s name to Death. “His concept was spinning death from the negative to the positive. It was a hard sell,” the band’s Bobby Hackney recalled back in 2010. Their name and their sound, an innovative take on a familiar approach set the trio apart from their contemporaries — and later helped to mark them as both the first all-Black punk band and arguably the first punk band, ever.
In 1975, The Hackney Brothers recorded a handful of songs written by David and Bobby at Detroit’s United Sound Studios with engineer Jim Vitti. According to The Hackney Family, Clive Davis funded those recording sessions — but while doing so, repeatedly implored that the band change their name to something much more commercially palatable. The Hackneys refused. Although Bobby and Dannis were initially tentative and reluctant about the decision, they ultimately prioritized their familial relationship. Davis pulled his financial support and as a result, the band was left with seven recorded songs instead of the planned for 12.
In 1976, the Hackney Brothers released an extremely limited release of 500 copies of the “Politicians In My Eyes”/”Keep On Knocking” 7 inch single, followed by their full-length debut to little fanfare. By the following year, the sibling trio ended Death and relocated to Burlington, VT, where they recorded and released two albums of gospel rock as The 4 Movement during the late 70s and early 80s.
By 1982, David returned to Detroit while Bobby and Dannis remained in Vermont, eventually started reggae outfit Lambsbread. Tragically, David Hackney died of lung cancer in 2000. But reportedly before he died, David told his older siblings that although they were misunderstood and forgotten in their heyday, history would prove both them and their work as Death as truly revolutionary and important — even if it was after his own death.
Copies of the “Politicians In My Eyes”/”Keep On Knocking” 7 inch single and the band’s story had been circulating in collector’s circles for some time with some copies of the single selling for $800 as a result of their extreme rarity; one source of them was Don Schwenk, a friend of the sibling trio, who was originally commissioned to create album art for their album and was given a box of singles in exchange for his work.
In a wildly serendipitous spin of events that both seem like a hack typed out for a Hallmark movie and too good to be true, MP3s of “Politicians In My Eyes” and “Keep On Knocking” eventually found their way to Georgia-based music and humor magazine Chunklet back in 2008. Around this time, Bobby Hackney’s son Julian had moved to California and heard those two Death songs after a roommate’s recommendation and immediately recognized his father’s voice. Also around the same time, Julian and his siblings had stumbled upon some of the original master recordings and were so impressed by what they had heard, that they had begun to cover their father’s and uncle’s material. Eventually, news of the material and the story of Death reached Drag City Records, who contacted the Hackney family about the possible release of the band’s material.
The Hackney family provided the label with the original master tape of the 1975 United Sound sessions, which Drag City Records released on LP and CD in 2009 as . . . For the Whole World to See. With a sound that effortlessly meshed elements of reggae, garage rock, metal and proto-punk, the album’s material serves as an important musical bridge between Parliament Funkadelic and Bob Marley, Prince and Bad Brains, Fishbone, Living Colour and TV on the Radio and more.
Since the re-release of their demos and full-length debut, the current Death lineup — surviving brothers Bobby (bass, vocals) and Dannis (drums) with Bobbie Duncan (guitar) — have toured across the country a number of times, making stops across the national festival circuit, winning over new fans with their groundbreaking sound while further cementing their rightful place as musical pioneers.
Simply put: punk rock is Black y’all. And being Black in this world is punk as fuck.
Discover more from The Joy of Violent Movement
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.