Drum Song

Sources disagree on when and as whom it came out. Recliner Notes dates it to 1968 on Evening Time, credited to Jackie Mittoo and the Soul Vendors; a Qobuz biography says a 1969 single credited to the Soul Vendors; an NTS listing says 1967; and some sources list it among Sound Dimension instrumentals. We could not verify the writer, though it is likely Mittoo's.

Recliner Notes describes it as opening with drum rat-a-tats and a guitar riff, then bass and drums and a second chicken-scratch guitar; an organ melody doubled by trumpet repeats, then trumpet and organ solos, which the author hears as a band locked into a spell-binding groove, with no looping. Mittoo, it says, revisited the song several times without matching the original's mood. The essay connects it with Killah Priest's "From Then Till Now" (1998), whose whistle sample comes from Marion Marlowe's "The Man in the Raincoat"; it does not state that Drum Song itself is sampled. It is the title track of a 2003 Attack compilation and track 10 of The Keyboard King at Studio One, and there is a Gorgon Records and VP compilation of the same name. We found no setlist, chart history, video or personnel for the track.