KUNG FU FIGHTING SONG youtube/watch?v=jhUkGIsKvn0 MARTIAL ARTS IN THE MEDIA CARL DOUGLAS WRITER AND PERFORMER OF “KUNG FU FIGHTING” Kung Fu Fighting was a hit Disco Dance song of the 1970’s. Martial Arts mania and Disco Dancing swept North America simultaneously in late 1972 and Carl’s song captured that moment brilliantly!! The man behind the smash hit, disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” was Carl Douglas. He was the first Jamaican born artist to score a number one single in the United States! Often touted as a “one-hit wonder” due to the success of “Kung Fu Fighting”, Carl Douglas does in fact have a substantial catalogue of music that can stand on its own merits despite never equaling the success of “Kung Fu Fighting”. Douglas was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the United States. He grew up in California and later moved to England to study sound engineering. While in England, Douglas formed a musical group called the Big Stampede and went on to release a couple of mildly successful singles in the U.K. Two years later (while living in Spain), he formed another group, “The Explosions“. The group did not go far and Douglas returned to England where he teamed up with a band called “Gonzales”. This gig in turn, led to his becoming a session vocalist for Pye Records. In 1972 Douglas returned to England and worked with record producer Biddu on the soundtrack to “Embassy”, a film starring Richard Roundtree. Later, Biddu selected Douglas as a vocalist to record the single “I want to give you my everything”. Needing a quick B-side to the record, Biddu put a melody to the lyrics of a song written by Douglas. The song had been inspired by the Kung Fu craze that swept the world after the release of Bruce Lee’s film “Enter the Dragon” and David Carradine’s TV show “Kung Fu”. The song “Kung Fu Fighting” was recorded in just 10 minutes! Later, when the executives at Pye Records smelled a winner, they escalated the song to the A side of the record! It went on to top the charts first in the U.K. and then Worldwide, selling over nine million copies! Pye Records hurriedly put together an album anchored by the hit single and entitled it “Kung Fu fighting and other great love songs” LOL! Subsequently, Douglas released two more albums, “Love, Peace and Happiness” in 1979 and “Keep Pleasing Me” in 1983. Neither album approached the popularity of “Kung Fu Fighting and other great love songs”. Douglas has since moved to Hamburg, Germany where he owns a successful production company specializing in supplying music to German films and advertisements. Incredibly, the man who so popularized Kung Fu in North American pop culture through his song “Kung Fu Fighting” never trained a day in his life!!!!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:24:49 +0000
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