Whitney Joins the JAMs

"Whitney Joins the JAMs" is a song and 1987 single by

According to Drummond, the JAMs had originally planned to produce a house record around Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft". However:

We booked the studio for five days.... I went around to the record shop near the studio to get hold of Shaft.... and in the window was ... a big cut-out of Whitney Houston.... I love that track, and I loved Whitney Houston then, and I just said 'Wow', and bought the album [Whitney].... We just played that track over and over again, and we just thought: ..."no point us making records when such fantastic records as this have been made". And that's how that track ... grew into a celebration of Whitney Houston.^[3]

— Bill Drummond

Release

"Whitney Joins the JAMs" was given a low-key release in the UK, initially as a run of 500 one-sided

The song develops to sample full sections of Houston's chorus, alternating these with increasingly pronounced guitar work taken from Hayes' distinctive Shaft theme and portions of the Mission: Impossible theme complemented by piano work. Ultimately the track descends into an unrhythmic cacophony of samples.

Reviews

NME noted that "Whitney Joins the JAMs" exhibited a slicker blending of samples than the duo's previous recordings, with the JAMs moving from "crash collision" to "the art of super selective theft". "Whitney" is a "disco gun-down that is so beat-packed it will keep your boogie box high and gasping for days.", the paper wrote. "If this doesn't prove to you that dance music is moving with more energy and vitality than traditional rock then nothing will."^[8] Comparing "Whitney Joins the JAMs" to the duo's two other singles of 1987, NME also recognised that the track is "a tale of simple sample fantasy", whereas the lyrics of "All You Need Is Love" and "Down Town", "question the inadequacies and inconsistencies of society".^[9]

AllMusic called "Whitney Joins the JAMs" "hilarious".^[10]

Legacy

Ironically, Drummond claimed that in 1991 the KLF were offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album, as an inducement from the boss of her record label (Clive Davis of Arista Records) to sign with them.^[3][11][12] The KLF did not accept the offer, but nonetheless they signed to be distributed by Arista in the US. Drummond said, "They sent us a copy of her current album and said: '[are] there any tracks in this album you wanna redo? We'll send her over [to] do photo sessions with you. We'll have her with a KLF T-shirt on the next video.' We got the album: complete rubbish.... But the whole concept! And suddenly we're being offered Whitney on a plate.... 'My God!'"^[3]

Davis' offer reflected the upturn in Drummond and Cauty's fortunes brought about by their decision to produce commercial music as the Timelords and the KLF. Whereas the JAMs' recordings of 1987 were at the legal mercy of the artists sampled therein, Drummond and Cauty later became able to commission the services of established performers. The Timelords' "Gary Joins the JAMs" (a version of their UK #1 novelty single "

In 1995, Drummond and Cauty unsuccessfully attempted to recruit Robbie Williams to sing on a track they were donating to The Help Album;^[14] Williams was on holiday and unavailable.^[15] Drummond outlined their idea—which mirrors "Whitney Joins the JAMs"—in a chapter of his book 45 entitled "Robbie Joins the Jams": "Over a mug of tea Jimmy [Cauty] and I got it all worked out. We would record our version of 'The Magnificent Seven', renamed 'The Magnificent One', through Sunday night. Over the track I would beseech Robbie Williams to join The Jams, and then Robbie would in fact turn up at the studio in the early hours of Monday morning and make his creative contribution to the record."^[16] The track was ultimately recorded without Robbie Williams and titled "The Magnificent".^{[citation needed]}

Notes and references