DESCRIPTION:
W I S H C A N W I L L I A M
- the remix -




After over 36 years the "Wishcan William" odyssey continues. This song was first recorded on April 2, 1982 when rap was in it's infancy and six months before Lil Wayne was born (September 27, 1982). The remixed version may be among the first to have a rapper on a track with his kids and GRANDKIDS!

Story Behind the Song

Way back in the year 1981 my first bandleader, Wesley Ford, and I were sitting around talking about the late 60's when we were out gigging around Washington, DC. with his band, The DC Playboys. The unit had long since disbanded by that time and we hadn't seen each other in a good while. Rap music was just beginning to catch on and somehow our conversation shifted to how a lot of negative influences were starting to creep into the lyrics of the rap songs. Wesley knew I liked to write so he suggested that I should write something positive while staying in the style of the rap genre. Having already introduced me to what he called the " I AM " philosophy, which has to do with the power of positive thinking among other things, Wesley encouraged me to use “I AM” as the theme of the song. That's how the whole thing got started in the spring of 1982.

Little did I suspect at the time all the changes I would go through to arrive at the present incarnation of this 36 year old work in progress. My own kids, Lincoln IV and Nicquel, who were 6 and 11 at the time, are among the voices in the background. They are 44 and 48 today. Also my dear friend, the late Tyrone Anderson Sr. with his friend Judy Seeger gathered up her kids, nieces and nephews who all ate peanut butter sandwiches in the back of my van on the way to Bias Studios in Springfield, VA. Douglas Graham (aka Mr.‘D‘) a DC area artist/producer/manager believed in the project and put up his hard earned money for us to record.


Twenty-three years later (in the fall of 2006), I decided to update the beat and musical background. First, I went back to the studio with the old master tape, frazzled edges and all, and dubbed the kids voices onto a CD all by themselves. [ Note: CD's weren’t even around when we first started this project.] Next, thanks to modern studio technology, I was able to add the old voices to the new track and sync the rhythm by using Pro-Tools computer recording software. For those that don’t know, Pro-Tools is a computer-based recording system that has editing capabilities that would have been impossible with the analog tape we started out with. Later in the fall of 2007 I was then able to overdub four of my five grandchildren so that now they are on the same track as their parents when their parents were children. Actually my first grandson, Aloysha, is older on the track than his father was when we first recorded.

So there you have it, three generations on the same track and possibly to be embellished with more young voices in the not too distant future. Alexander, my fifth grand and most recent overdub-ee, was born just a few days past Wishcan William’s 27th anniversary (04/02/09). Alex overdubbed his part on June 6, 2014 when he was 5 (he’s 10 now) and upstaged the whole lot of us with his spirited performance in the first few bars.

Now, does this song have a story or what? !!!

Credits:

• Douglas Graham (Mr. ‘D‘) / executive producer, original release (1983)
• Children's voices:
James Adams (Mann), Wayne Seegers (Fatty), James Seegers, Forrest Palimery, Donna Palimery, Vanessa King, Pam Diggs, Nicquel Ross (Nikki), Lincoln Ross IV
• (plus recently added grandkids)
Lincoln Aloysha Ross, Alyssa Ross, Zion Wynn, and Jayr Wynn, Alexander Ross
• Lincoln Ross III (aka ‘grandpa’) / rapper, producer, programming, trombone, guitar






Free downloads - http://www.soundcloud.com/lincolnross