Jimmy Castor

Jimmy Castor earned his greatest fame through the boogaloo crossover smash "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Calling You" (1966), the Top Ten pop single "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" (1972), and the foundational hip-hop sample source "It's Just Begun" (also 1972), plus numerous other tracks that producers later mined repeatedly. Although lively funk defined his commercial output, Castor never operated as a one-dimensional novelty artist; his early grounding in doo wop and jazz surfaced repeatedly across his recordings. John Pruitt, his longtime songwriting and production partner, dubbed him "the Everything Man," a label that accurately captured his range. In addition to his principal instrument, the saxophone, Castor wrote, arranged, produced, sang, played keyboards, mastered Latin percussion, and fronted groups, most prominently leading the Jimmy Castor Bunch through the 1970s. Standout albums from his catalog include It's Just Begun, which climbed to number 27 on Billboard's LP chart in 1972, while his final solo project appeared slightly more than a decade afterward.

A native New Yorker born in Manhattan, Jimmy Castor entered music as a child. He composed and cut the 1956 single "I Promise to Remember" with the Juniors, whose members included Al Casey, Jr., Orton Graves, and Johnny Williams. In 1957 he stepped in for Frankie Lymon within the Teenagers, then took up the saxophone in 1960. He contributed to multiple soul-jazz and Afro-Latin dates—he also performed on Dave "Baby" Cortez's 1962 hit "Rinky Dink"—and secured his first of three Top 40 pop entries in 1966 with "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' You," released on Smash.

Castor formed the Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1970; after two independent singles the group signed with RCA, its lineup featuring conga player Lenny Fridle, Jr., bassist Doug Gibson, guitarist Harry Jensen, drummer Bobby Manigault, and keyboardist/trumpeter Gerry Thomas. Their debut album, It's Just Begun, launched Castor's next chapter when "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" reached number six on the pop chart and number four on the R&B chart. In 1975 the ensemble nearly repeated that performance with "The Bertha Butt Boogie" (number 16 pop, number 22 R&B) from the Atlantic album Butt of Course... By the close of the 1970s the Jimmy Castor Bunch had issued eleven LPs that together yielded fourteen charting A-sides.

Operating as a solo artist during the 1980s, Castor issued C at the start of the decade on his own Long Distance label. Three years later The Return of Leroy appeared on Salsoul's Dream subsidiary, its opening side containing remixes by Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan. He grazed the R&B chart with a pair of mid-decade singles and, in 1988, reached number 29 by duetting with Joyce Sims on a cover of "Love Makes a Woman," originally recorded by Barbara Acklin. Although he ceased recording, Castor's material continued to surface in subsequent decades through sample-driven hip-hop productions. Heart failure ended his life at age 71 on January 16, 2012.