Little Axe A Universal Thing

Rip It Up, Issue 213, 1 May 1995, Page 14

Little Axe A Universal Thing

Skip McDonald is the stuff that legends are made of. In 1973, the Ohio-born multi-instrumentalist was a member of the pioneer dance/funk group Wood, Brass and Steel, with Doug Wimbish. Two years later, the two joined forces with drummer Kieth Le Blanc as the Sugar Hill House Band for Sugar Hill Records. From 79 to 82, this trio anchored such spectacular songs as Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’ and ‘White Lines’. McDonald, Wimbish and Le Blanc are also the driving force behind Tackhead, while for many years McDonald has worked in a co-production capacity with On U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood. McDonald’s latest eclectic project is enti-

tied Little Axe, and like a lot of On U Sound groups, there is a massive global feeling about the music. On the group’s debut album, The House That Wolf Built, McDonald has combined blues, dub, and rock feels, with African and Indian samples. “It was a universal thing that I was trying to convey, but I didn’t want to categorise the music. To me blues is funk, funk is R&B, and R&B is rock ’n’ roll, they all take elements from each other. I try to acknowledge that a lot of the things I do come from music I respect and love, and hopefully I can reproduce that myself, or even better, something new might be recreated.”

JOHN RUSSELL