Ease On Down The Road - Michael Jakson & Diana Ross

Is it insulting to the so-called 'blogosphere' to post a jam that is this obvious? I feel like some of you out there are going to say, 'Come On, Dave! You asshole! Tell us something we don't know!' And yet, has there really been anything on this blog that wasn't already patently obvious?

And thus, in the supreme spirit of The Seventies, where one could, and usually did, inject anything traditionally white-bread with a little Soul, we have this obvious jam featured in the 1975 Broadway musical, and later the 1978 film, The Wiz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. You will recall that The Wiz was a soulful re-imagining, what some might call an urbanization, of The Wizard of Oz, presumably designed to capture those demographics left untouched by the presence of ruby slippers and flying monkeys. With the inclusion of singing and dancing, even the film version of The Wiz was a full fledged musical.

Now, we all know that Diana Ross and Michael Jackson are cool, but have you seen them lately? Flying monkeys indeed! See, this is when they were at their respective zeniths, certainly not the butt of the numerous jokes we can all heartily chuckle at today. Though Diana Ross still maintains a dignity that Michael Jackson relinquished years ago, her career has gone somewhat sour, with renewed interest owed to another musical cum Hollywood production inspired by her past: Dreamgirls.



None of these facts can alter the course of this jam, however. It will live large in the minds of all those who have heard it and have grown up with it, long before sucka MCs like Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, et al. took the helm with their new millennium exploitations of great, classic and obvious jams.