Category Archives: music

The other day I came upon an amazing find on ebay. For two dollars I got a 45 by the semi-obscure Chicago-based R&B act Baby Huey and the Babysitters. Baby Huey only released one LP, the misleadingly titled/posthumously released Living Legend (1971), and a handful of songs on a handful of 45s. The 45s are from the early 60s (or so I thought) when the band had yet to develop the sound that can be heard on the long player–the difference in sound is the equivalent of the difference between those early songs that Bowie released on Deram and the stuff he was doing in his Ziggy days. This guy seems to know something about the early singles but they don’t interest me much.

The record that I got is a single from the same time period as the release of the Living Legend LP. It has on it a track that was not included on the album or any of the CD reissues of it that I know of (making the most recent one something of a disappointment despite the great sound quality). The songs on the record are both covers of Curtis Mayfield’s Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey). For some reason the song is listed on the record as Mighty Mighty Children. The B side is the odd but fantastic version that is on Living Legend, but the A is a completely different, more straightforward version of Mighty Mighty without the little girl singing or the mention of Thunderbird (Christ what I wouldn’t do to get my hands on some of that stuff) or red beans and rice or ox tails. It does feature some amazing screaming from Baby Huey in the fade and can be heard here. For some reason the copy that I have is on Radio Active Gold records and not Curtom.

In other Babysitters news, their best song, Hard Times, can be heard in the trailer and film JCVD.

Also I have gotten confirmation that this band of squares have no affiliation whatsoever with the actual Babysitters. Imagine thinking you’re booking an evening of heavy, heavy funk and R&B for your party and instead this wedding band arrives.