Straight Outa Compton (Prequel): “The Cisco Kid” by War

They started out in 1962 as The Creators, and in 1968 changed their name to Nightshift when they became the backing band for Deacon Jones, the great Rams/Chargers/Redskins defensive end who fancied himself as a singer. About a year later they were recruited by old-school record producer Jerry Goldstein and ex-Animals singer Eric Burdon to form War. With Burdon up front they had a good deal of success (“Spill The Wine”); Jimi Hendrix’s last appearance on stage, the night before his death, was with the band at Ronnie Scott’s. Then Burdon left the band mid-tour due to ill-health and War proceeded on their own to become one of the smarter responders to the gauntlet that Sly Stone had laid down.

The World Is A Ghetto was America’s biggest-selling album of 1973 – its demographic was largely black and Hispanic, and this was supremely refreshing in the middle of the white, middle-class, introspective world of Laurel Canyon; if anything, the multiracial, multicultural and socio-political set-up of War was a far more accurate and comprehensive picture of what early seventies Los Angeles was really like, despite what the segregationist nature of seventies FM rock radio might prefer you to believe.

“The Cisco Kid” was the album’s opening track and first and bigger single and certainly helped win them the Hispanic crossover vote. Ostensibly a tribute to the fifties television series which depicted two Robin Hood-style desperadoes on a mission to do justice to the poor and fight against The Man – although the show’s star Duncan Renaldo was actually Romanian, the titular hero was immediately perceived and received as Hispanic – the song rolls on in a seductively patient mid-paced manner, cleverly altering its arrangement with every sung/chanted line. Its funk sneaks into your backbone. The song’s tale, however, has a much wider subtext; on examination, it is clear that it is really about the fight against institutional racism. No wonder it doesn’t get revived in the newly and cruelly divided world of 2018.

Date Record Made Number Two: 28 April 1973

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 2

Record At Number One: “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando And Dawn

UK Chart Position: None

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