To my Mom, my sister and all you moms out there, Happy Mother’s Day from me…and Shaft!
In case you’ve never seen the movie, here’s the trailer (back in the 1970s, trailers ran long and gave you waaaay too much of the movie)…
And here’s the intro with that classic theme by the late Mr. Isaac Hayes:
This is a great pic of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder in the studio, presumably sometime around when the Jackson 5 sang backup on Stevie’s You Haven’t Done Nothin’, an underappreciated tune these days (it’s also an angry criticism of Richard Nixon, as well as one that the Teabaggers are trying to co-opt in their insane anti-Obama campaign) despite the fact that it’s quite good and his tenth number one hit on the Billboard Top 100.
It’s a testament to fashion’s cyclical nature that both their outfits wouldn’t look terribly out of place in 2010. I’ve worn something a lot like Michael’s outfit recently – at a Microsoft conference, no less! – and Stevie’s rockin’ a look that Snoop Dogg would feel at home in.
My question is: “Catching positions for what?” Volleyball? Things thrown from an upstairs window? Stage-diving characters from a production of Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar?
Some things defy description, and this Lawrence Welk-esque music video from the 1970s is one of them. You’re just going to have to watch it.
The gentleman in the video is one Edward Anatolevich Hill or Эдуард Хиль, and the song he’s performing is titled I am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home. The song is meant to be sung in the vokaliz style, which means that it’s meant to be sung without words. And wow, does he do just that.
Luckily for us, there are scholarly types out the on the internet who’ve taken the time to do the research behind such oddball phenomena. Go over to Justin Erik Halldor Smith’s blog and get the skinny on Edward Anatolevich Hill.