Daddy, Where Do Hit Songs Come From?

1972. Huge hit for the Staples Singers:

1969. Lunch money for the Harry J. All Stars:

Gotta love a guy like Harry Johnson. African, Sicilian, and Scottish descent. Shaka Prima Braveheart.

People love to seize on stuff like this, and not just in music. So and so didn’t really invent such and such.

The machinery of popularity, like less trivial pursuits, is not about fairness, or pedigree, or seniority. It doesn’t matter that Henry Ford didn’t invent the auto, or the assembly line. It doesn’t matter that Bill Gates didn’t do much of his own source code. It doesn’t matter that the Staple Singers used Harry J’s riff for their hit. Your job, if you’re going to enter the big arenas and triumph, is to put the thing that everyone needs or wants in front of everyone at the right time and place.

Visionaries deserve credit. I hope I just gave Harry J. some. But practical syncretists are just as important. They generally don’t require any extra credit, as they are sitting on piles of money and hate to reach down to receive their praise.