17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
How Average White Band 'touched the core' of Black America
Yet a group of six guys from Scotland are among the most influential figures in the contemporary sound of all those genres, and that's despite literally being called the Average White Band.
"Those are some Scottish guys," former U.S President Barack Obama said in an interview with Bruce Springsteen. "And those boys can jam."
The Boss concurred.
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Chuck D of Public Enemy said seeing them on Soul Train was "a revelation", they've been sampled by NAS, N.W.A, The Beastie Boys, De La Soul and Del tha Funkee Homosapien to name but a few.
Glasgow's David McCallum may have provided the basis for Dr Dre's 'The Next Episode' but the AWB leave him in the dust - the website WhoSampled credits 169 to one song alone.
Go one step removed and you can probably trace Kendrick Lamar's funk and soul infused To Pimp a Butterfly to the Average Whites, Eminem once said "I'm a product of Rakim", who famously sampled the group's 'School Boy Crush'.
Anthony Baxter, the director of You've Been Trumped, is currently in the process of making a film about the group entitled Soul Searching.
A snippet will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, with some of the biggest names in music already on board.
He tells The Herald: "I've been blown away by how deeply their music is revered in the United States, I've spent the best part of the last couple of years filming extensively and whether it's the audiences they had on their last tour, which was 80% black in pretty much every place I went to, or they incredible impact they've had on some of the biggest names in music today, predominantly hip-hop artists and music producers, they've told me what the band means to them.
'Whether it's Flava Flav, Questlove, or a woman called Melody Spann Cooper who runs Chicago's longest-running black music station who told me: 'they touched the very core of who we were'.
"Chuck D said to me, 'you just feel it and that was the epitome of soul'. DJ Premier said 'their funk wasn't made up, it was from their heart and soul'.
Average White Band (Image: Supplied) "Questlove told me that when he came across the band on Soul Train it was at that moment he decided he wanted to become a drummer. He played their live album every day for 10 years, because he just loved it so much.
"In Scotland everyone knows their songs but I think the story of how they've impacted hip-hop and black music culture in America is one that really surprised me with how deep it goes.
'In Detroit there was this band of brothers called The Jitterbugs who pioneered this dance move called The Jit, and 'Schoolboy Crush' was one of the real influences on that dance move.
'In Los Angeles I spoke to two former Crips and the infamous Crip Walk was really influenced by 'Schoolboy Crush'. Their music has penetrated the culture in America in a much deeper way than I'd initially thought and it's just been a real joy to see how revered the band is."
On the face of it, it's a pretty unlikely combination.
Six white guys who grew up in post-war Scotland not just doing R&B and funk, but doing it so well they became adored in the places which gave the world that sound.
Mr Baxter says: "There were six of them in the beginning and they listened to this kind of music coming in from the United States – Aretha Franklin was their heroine.
'They would search through all the latest Black music coming in, it was being played in one or two pubs around Scotland and they would seek out that music.
'They've explained to me that their Scottishness helped, not only just in the sound of their voices in singing this very soulful, funky music but also when they were growing up after the war it was extreme austerity and I think people like Chaka Khan were going through a similar kind of thing – so there were parallels there."
The filmmakers are hoping to have it finished by the end of this year, which marks 50 since the Average White Band topped the charts Stateside.
It's produced by Montrose Films along with Screen Scotland, Kartemquin Films, Vertigo Films, and Sky Originals, and it's hoped with the threat of Trump tariffs in the air there will be some Hollywood interest.
Mr Baxter says: "I came to know the music of the band when I was growing up but I didn't really know much about their backstory until I read a piece a journalist friend of mine wrote about them.
'I contacted Alan Gorrie about three years ago and sat down with him and spoke about making a film. Since then I've embarked on a journey and found this extraordinary story which was far more multi-layered than I had ever anticipated.
"There are still one or two very high profile musicians who are keen to speak to me for the film but what we have already is a terrific story.
'We've uncovered some amazing archival footage along the way, part of the ambition I have is to put the viewer back in 1970s America when they've come across there.
"This is more than a music documentary, people will celebrate the music but also be able to immerse themselves in the world of Average White Band and that profoundly important point in music culture.
"It's funky, it's R&B, it's soul… it's Average White Band.'
