Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (Deluxe Edition) (1971/2018) [Vinyl]

James Thomas Ramey, better known by his stage name Baby Huey (taken from the Paramount Pictures animated giant cartoon duckling) was born in Richmond, Indiana and moved to Chicago in the early '60s to front his band The Babysitters with co-founders Melvin Deacon Jones on trumpet and Johnny Ross on guitar. By the time they recorded The Living Legend, only Huey and Jones remained (Deacon Jones would go on to play with Freddie King and John Lee Hooker). Because of a glandular disorder, Huey weighed close to 400 pounds at times, contributing to his "larger than life" stage presence, but also to a host of health issues. During the later '60s, The Babysitters followed Sly and the Family Stone's lead and became a psychedelic soul act, with Huey adding rhymes to their stage act. Curtis Mayfield, tipped off by Donny Hathaway, came to check them out and they were in the midst of recording The Living Legend for his label when Huey died in a hotel room, just a few weeks after Jimi Hendrix. It became a posthumous release. Fast forward a few years to Kool Herc (one of the original hip-hop DJs, who began to spin two copies of "Listen To Me" at the same time---starting the Baby Huey cult, and leading to "Hard Times" being sampled by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube. The lacquers for this RSD 2018 release were cut directly from the analog tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Record Industry. It comes in a tip-on Stoughton jacket and includes a bonus LP of unreleased instrumentals making their vinyl debut.