Once upon a time there was an American soul band who called themselves The Winstons. They won a Grammy Award for “Best Rhythm and Blues Song” back in 1969 and birthed what would become the world’s most sampled track of all time. What’s now called the “Amen Break” is a brief drum series taken from the band’s song “Amen Brother” and has since become a dance-music goldmine. However, The Winstons have never received any compensation for it, until now. On February 18, 2016, UK-based music fan Martyn Webster stepped up and created and established a GoFundMe campaign to repay the group for the legendary contribution to music. Webster was motivated to start the fundraiser after watching a BBC/1Xtra interview with the band’s lead singer and saxophone player Richard Spencer in 2011, where the musicians expressed his sadness due to lack of compensation he had received for the countless samples of the song. As of today, the GoFundMe campaign has reached nearly $30,000 USD. Spencer expresses his appreciation for his fans’ donations. YoutTube has taken down the original video of Spencer giving thanks to the fans, but he’s just uploaded another one on his Facebook which can be seen below. You can still contribute to the campaign here.
Firstly, sorry for the delay in updating this! It has taken some time to tie everything up, and to cut a long story short, transferring the money from the UK to Richard in America caused some big headaches with my bank being a bit awkward! Anyway, for everyone who donated, here is Richard with his huge Gofundme cheque :)People have asked me if the campaign could be opened again, or left open indefinitely. I have spent a lot of time asking (begging!) Gofundme if they would be able to change the gofundme account I set up originally so that the money went directly to Richard, unfortunately they say that this is not possible at all. Maybe something could be setup directly to Richard’s paypal or similar, I will look into it with him.As much as I would of loved to of presented him the cheque/money myself, unfortunately at the time it was not possible to get to America due to work and home commitments, hopefully one day it can happen!Once again, thank you to everyone who donated, the whole campaign became more of a success than I could ever imagine!(Click HD when you start watching the video)
Posted by The Winstons Amen Breakbeat Gesture on Tuesday, November 10, 2015