Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Who Are the Hi-Five?
Winning their fourth straight AFC West championship, the San Diego Chargers ended their regular season as a possible Super Bowl team. As their postseason commenced last Sunday, one could imagine hopeful Bolts faithful singing along to a football-specific ditty like “Let’s Go All the Way,” crooned by actual Charger players, a slinky soul number produced at the 39-year-old Studio West in Rancho Bernardo, one of seven tracks on an album sporting a cover of the five jocks in tuxes outside their Mission Valley stadium, lightning bolts rending the night sky behind.
That is, if the fans knew about it. Because 1981’s The Other Side of Us by the Hi-Five — Chargers Kellen Winslow, Leroy Jones, Charles DeJurnett, John Jefferson, and Fred Dean — appears largely unknown, shrouded in misconception, even for the reverent record collectors who’ve paid $154 for a rare vinyl copy. One online description from Europe sets the typical breathless tone: “Soaring grooves with a warm and jazzy finish, a great bit of lost early ’80s soul from the California indie scene! … The vocals are especially great, often with harmonies that glide and groove in a wonderful way.…”
Helping to obscure the identity of the Hi-Five is widespread confusion with a charting New Edition–ish R&B act from Texas bearing the same name. Apple’s online iTunes store even has the SD Hi-Five album tracks in the Texas act’s catalog. Misleading further, the Charger Hi-Five record was produced by Bernard Thompson, who also cowrote its original material with a Kirk Thompson (only cover is oldie “Backfield in Motion”) — and the Texas boy-band’s lead singer was Tony Thompson (who had a fatal “huffing habit,” overdosing on Freon in 2007).
Of the 20 musicians credited, current Studio West owner Peter Dyson only recognized the last listed, saxist John Rekevics — a vet sideman for Dianne Carrol, Mel Tormé, David Sanborn, Bob Hope, Lynyrd Skynryd, Natalie Cole, the Four Seasons, Johnny Mathis, the Fifth Dimension, and the Temptations and 20-year SDSU faculty member. “I think it was a pretty good LP for a bunch of football players,” assessed Rekevics when contacted. “Some of the tracks were in an Earth, Wind & Fire vein, with the tight horn lines.”
According to an October 1981 Billboard article, there were 15,000 copies pressed. And though the members “admit …they were essentially locker-room singers” who “had become serious,” there’s scant trace of further vocal activity other than Hall of Fame tight-end Kellen Winslow later singing in SD’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church choir. Indeed, on the record, Winslow puts in a churchy “Have mercy!” after his memorable sung-spoken part: “My name is Kellen…/ Alias/ the brown-eyed Scorpio/ #80 in your program/ #1 in your heart.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Who Are the Hi-Five?
Who Are the Hi-Five?
Winning their fourth straight AFC West championship, the San Diego Chargers ended their regular season as a possible Super Bowl team. As their postseason commenced last Sunday, one could imagine hopeful Bolts faithful singing along to a football-specific ditty like “Let’s Go All the Way,” crooned by actual Charger players, a slinky soul number produced at the 39-year-old Studio West in Rancho Bernardo, one of seven tracks on an album sporting a cover of the five jocks in tuxes outside their Mission Valley stadium, lightning bolts rending the night sky behind.
That is, if the fans knew about it. Because 1981’s The Other Side of Us by the Hi-Five — Chargers Kellen Winslow, Leroy Jones, Charles DeJurnett, John Jefferson, and Fred Dean — appears largely unknown, shrouded in misconception, even for the reverent record collectors who’ve paid $154 for a rare vinyl copy. One online description from Europe sets the typical breathless tone: “Soaring grooves with a warm and jazzy finish, a great bit of lost early ’80s soul from the California indie scene! … The vocals are especially great, often with harmonies that glide and groove in a wonderful way.…”
Helping to obscure the identity of the Hi-Five is widespread confusion with a charting New Edition–ish R&B act from Texas bearing the same name. Apple’s online iTunes store even has the SD Hi-Five album tracks in the Texas act’s catalog. Misleading further, the Charger Hi-Five record was produced by Bernard Thompson, who also cowrote its original material with a Kirk Thompson (only cover is oldie “Backfield in Motion”) — and the Texas boy-band’s lead singer was Tony Thompson (who had a fatal “huffing habit,” overdosing on Freon in 2007).
Of the 20 musicians credited, current Studio West owner Peter Dyson only recognized the last listed, saxist John Rekevics — a vet sideman for Dianne Carrol, Mel Tormé, David Sanborn, Bob Hope, Lynyrd Skynryd, Natalie Cole, the Four Seasons, Johnny Mathis, the Fifth Dimension, and the Temptations and 20-year SDSU faculty member. “I think it was a pretty good LP for a bunch of football players,” assessed Rekevics when contacted. “Some of the tracks were in an Earth, Wind & Fire vein, with the tight horn lines.”
According to an October 1981 Billboard article, there were 15,000 copies pressed. And though the members “admit …they were essentially locker-room singers” who “had become serious,” there’s scant trace of further vocal activity other than Hall of Fame tight-end Kellen Winslow later singing in SD’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church choir. Indeed, on the record, Winslow puts in a churchy “Have mercy!” after his memorable sung-spoken part: “My name is Kellen…/ Alias/ the brown-eyed Scorpio/ #80 in your program/ #1 in your heart.”
Comments