In the year-long series Sounds Of Blaxploitation, Craig D. Lindsey plays the hits that defined a genre, drawing connections between the music of the moment and the films that gave it a platform.
“This will never be a hit. We’re literally singing about a car wash!” This is what drummer Henry Garner, Jr. claimed was the general consensus among Rose Royce, the band who performed the theme song for the 1976 comedy Car Wash.
Norman Whitfield, the groundbreaking Motown producer and songwriter responsible for Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” Edwin Starr’s “War,” and The Temptations’ whole psychedelic-soul era, was commissioned to score the ensemble film from Cooley High director Michael Schultz, which tracked a day in the lives of the wisecracking, trash-talking men-children of color who work at the Los Angeles Dee-Luxe Car Wash. For Whitfield, it was a chance to introduce the world to Rose Royce, a new soul band he had signed to his Whitfield Records label.
Whitfield was not just responsible for bringing this nine-piece group—consisting of members from Total Concept Unlimited, a collective of Watts and Inglewood musicians who later toured as Starr’s backing band, and Biloxi-born vocalist Gwen “Rose” Dickey—together. He was also their chief writer-producer, and he had a working-class ditty for them that he was sure would make them top-40 stars. Despite their skepticism, the band recorded the theme song (made up of lyrics that Dickey said Whitfield wrote on “a greasy chicken box”) and, as Whitfield predicted, it became a double-platinum-selling smash, reaching number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Soul Singles charts.
The song plays severaltimes during Car Wash, a rhythmic motivator for its crew of working stiffs. “You might not ever get rich / But let me tell you it’s better than digging a ditch,” assures Dickey as they clean and shine one car after another.
Rose Royce also laid down two albums’ worth of background music that plays continuously throughout the film. Originally conceived as a musical (future Batman director Joel Schumacher wrote Car Wash after scripting the girl-group musical Sparkle earlier that year), the comedy is still a movie where the music plays an important role. And Schultz, whose filmography is littered with Black-and-mild quasi-musicals (this is the man who gave us Krush Groove and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon in the same year), knew how to create some catchy musical moments. One of my favorite scenes is a slo-mo sequence that introduces a bratty skateboarder (Michael Fennell) who regularly annoys our coverall-clad cleaners, zigging and zagging down the street. What’s the music playing? Why, it’s a little jazzy thing called “Zig Zag.”
You can count on one hand the Car Wash scenes where you don’t hear a Rose Royce song. Whether it’s over the loudspeaker or on the portable radio carried by portly employee Hippo (James Spinks), their tunes get airplay via the fictitious KGYS radio station, with actual DJs and radio personalities (including the late MTV VJ J.J. Jackson) spinning tunes and reading absurd news reports and PSAs. (“Remember: cancer cures smoking.”) I don’t know if it was Whitfield’s intention to come up with energetic funk tunes that could also be described as “bubbly,” but that’s what you get right out the gate when Car Wash begins. As the sun rises over L.A. and the staff begins trickling into work, the film starts off with “Righteous Rhythm,” where Lequeint “Duke” Jobe’s percolating bass forms a nasty, nimble groove with Victor Nix’s ferocious keyboards.
In fitting Blaxploitation-soundtrack fashion, most of the score has Rose Royce serving as an off-screen Greek chorus, musically commenting on what’s happening on screen. They provide pimpalicious theme music for the cane-wielding, smooth-talking preacher Daddy Rich (Richard Pryor) who rolls into the wash in his stretched ride. (“Here comes Daddy Rich in his millimousine / People come from everywhere when he’s on the scene,” sings Dickey.) This is also where we get the movie’s most musical-like moment: Rich’s testifying associates The Wilson Sisters (real-life sibling singers The Pointer Sisters) shut up a blaspheming revolutionary employee (Deep Cover director Bill Duke) with the piano-thumping finger-wagger “You Gotta Believe.”
The film also sees characters lip-synching two ballads that would become quiet-storm mainstays. Afro-sporting superhero wannabe T.C. (comedian Franklyn Ajaye) sings that please-baby-please slow jam “I Wanna Get Next To You” as he swoons over hard-to-get waitress Mona (Tracy Reed) at a nearby lunch spot. He spends most of the day trying to win radio-giveaway concert tickets for them, usually failing when someone or something prevents him from using the resident payphone. At one point, a wandering, lovesick prostitute (Lauren Jones) keeps the phone booth occupied, trying to contact a lover while singing “I’m Going Down”—a torchy, horn-heavy heartbreaker that would get successfully remade by Mary J. Blige 18 years later. Later in the film, she and Hippo barter a bathroom hookup (he gives up his precious radio for it) to the sounds of “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.”
Whitfield invited some session musicians from his Motown days to add more instrumental flavor, like guitar virtuoso Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin (from Motown’s longtime backing band The Funk Brothers), who brought his wah wah pedal and his waka-waka wizardry to several tracks. (He definitely brings some sinister string-picking to “Rich.”) Trombonist and arranger Paul Riser—another Funk Brother—led the orchestra for “Down” and other string-heavy numbers.
With Car Wash, Whitfield got some old pros to help out an up-and-coming band and ultimately created one of the most relentlessly funky soundtracks to come out of the ’70s. It would go on to win the 1977 Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album. Also, like so many Blaxploitation soundtracks, its samples and breaks have been found in popular music ever since. (The Beastie Boys stripped this joint for parts on the classic Paul’s Boutique jam “Shake Your Rump.”)
In fact, it would make sense if younger folks reading this only know the theme tune “Car Wash” because Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott sang it (as sea creatures!) in the 2004 CGI-animated flick Shark Tale. But we should always give props to the late, great Norman Whitfield for writing a working-class anthem that also ruled the disco dance floors—and for turning a young group of funksters into one of the baddest R&B groups of the era.
Next time: Two jazz legends provide righteous fight music for a pair of militant actioners.
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