Castor was born on January 23, 1940, Early in his career he was a member of the famous doo-wop group The Teenagers. Later he created Jimmy and the Juniors.[2] In late 1966 he released "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' You". As solo artist and leader of The Jimmy Castor Bunch (TJCB) in the 1970s, Castor released several successful albums and singles. TJCB peaked their commercial success in 1972 upon the release of their album, It's Just Begun, which featured two hit singles: the title track and "Troglodyte (Cave Man)", the latter of which became quite popular in the US, peaking at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track stayed on the chart for 14 weeks and on June 30, 1972, received a gold disc award from the RIAA for sales of a million copies.[1] Castor released "It's Just Begun" in 1972. In 1973, he recorded a soprano saxophone instrumental cover of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" written by Gary Brooker, Keith Reid and Matthew Fisher (from Procol Harum), on a tune inspired by J.S.Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 BWV1068 in his "Air on the G string”. Africa Bambaataa said that "It's Just Begun" was very popular at South Bronx block parties in the 1970s. Later popular songs included "Bertha Butt Boogie", "Potential", "King Kong" and "A Groove Will Make You Move" in 1975 and 1976.
The Jimmy Castor Bunch included keyboardist/trumpeter Gerry Thomas, bassist Doug Gibson, guitarist Harry Jensen, conga player Lenny Fridle, Jr., and drummer Bobby Manigault.[1] Thomas also recorded with the Fatback Band, leaving TJCB in the 1980s to exclusively record with them.
Many of the group's tunes have been heavily sampled in films and in hip-hop. In particular, the saxophone hook and groove from "It's Just Begun" and the spoken word intro and groove from "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" (namely, "What we're gonna do right here is go back..." and "Gotta find a woman, gotta find a woman") have been sampled extensively. Industrial hip hop group Tackhead covered the song "Just Begun" for the digital release of their album For the Love of Money.[3]
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SME (on behalf of RCA Records Label), and 3 Music Rights Societies
