Jerry Knight is a name I’ve been hearing about for quite sometime. There seems to have been a number of funk/soul musicians who had one or two major songs. But didn’t have a long term career as solo artists. That appears to have been what happened to Knight. Online research on this artist was really sketchy. According to two separate sources he was born today in either 1952 or 1955. And according to another he died 19 years ago. What is known about the man is that he was born in LA. And was a founding member of Raydio with Ray Parker Jr. Most of the information on this man came courtesy of Allmusic.com columnist and personal Facebook friend Ron Wynn. So wanted to thank him indirectly.
One thing that is known about Knight is that as a bass player/singer/songwriter/producer he worked with many artists in the soul/funk spectrum during the early 80’s-many of whom were once members of major 70’s funk acts now seeking solo careers. Among them were Phillip Bailey and Howard Hewett. Upon leaving radio after their first album, Knight decided to pursue a solo career. He eventually landed on A&M Records where he recorded three solo albums between 1980 and 1982. The first of these was a self titled effort that featured some co-writing contributions from Raydio’s Arnell Carmichael. The biggest song on this album was a groove called “Overnight Sensation”.
Guitarist Skip Adams begins the song playing a very Larry Carlton styled jazz-fusion type riff along with Knights thumping,round bass and rhythm Fender Rhodes on the intro. All the while Quintin Dennard keeps the beat steady on drums. The Rhodes takes the main solo until Adam’s rocking guitar takes over for the rest of the song. On the choruses, Knight sings lead with his backup vocalists. On the refrain’s,Dennard’s drums have a more skipping rhythm while the Rhodes scales up in pitch. This chorus/refrain pattern repeats itself for most of the song-with a bridge where the P-Funk like backup singers take the lead vocal again. This pattern continues on the chorus that closes out the song.
Instrumentally this is a pretty bold song. The funk percolates pretty heavy,and a lot of the notes used have a distinctly jazz fusion styled flavor about it. Knight’s bubbling bass soloing throughout the song allows for Adam’s guitar solo to flourish. By taking a hard,steely funk rhythm and throwing down a hard rocking guitar solo this song takes the funk/rock hybrid the Isley Brothers had been pursuing around this time and adds those heavier fusion notations. That gives it a sense of transcending the sound of one decade’s groove onto another. Whole Jerry Knight may not have a massively available personal biography,his funk certainly spoke for itself.
Andresmusictalk 