Original Noise LITTLEAXE-1

Who knows? Who cares? Billy Joel says “It’s all Rock N Roll to me.” And so it goes, or so it is. But when the world turns to Hip-Hop, citing “Rapper’s Delight” as the original seed is universal.

Released in 1979, the 12″ single “Rapper’s Delight” launched Hip-Hop as a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon. The opportunistic 15-minute track also revived the career of its producer, Sylvia Robinson, a street-wise R&B veteran whose success left the true pioneers of Rap fuming, almost as much as Hollywood’s depiction in the 1984 movie, Beat Street.

Skip McDonald’s musical life started in Dayton, Ohio. Playing guitar with his father on the porch and singing in the church choir every Sunday. >>>

“Too Late”
Little Axe
Environmental Cry
2006 — Real World Studio Sessions
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Skip McDonald — Deeply Rooted in the Blues, but never tethered, Skip “Little Axe” McDonald has always flown free. Skip’s earliest memory of playing the guitar, was as an 8-year-old boy, sitting on the front porch, following his father’s lead, and later, in the neighborhood church, two blocks over from his house, in his Dayton, Ohio.

Twenty years later, he was playing in a band called The Entertainers, that he, and friend, Harold Sargent put together, and became one of Ohio’s most respected bands, alongside the Ohio Players, the Isley Brothers, Bootsy Collins, and Parliament-Funkadelic.

In 1973, thinking it time for a change, Skip and Harold moved to New York, hoping to join the city’s most adventurous community of musicians. Dance, Fusion, Punk, Funk, Rock, Avant-Jazz, and many others were on a collision course, and the results were to be momentous.

As the guitarist in the Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section (with Doug Wimbish and Keith LeBlanc), Skip was wrote, played, and produced many of Hip-Hop’s anthems.

50s — Doo-Wop in Ohio
Not unlike George Clinton (before the change)
Corey Glover (Clinton inspired hair)
60s — New York City
After Shows in Harlem (Sugar Hill), Motown, Malcolm X (local), Martin Luther King, Joe Robinson (the gangster), Sylvia (the singer)
70s — Hartford, Connecticut
Skip McDonald
Harold Sargent
Jackie McLean
Wood Brass & Steel
Doug Wimbish
Keith Leblanc
Joe and Sylvia Robinson
Englewood New Jersey
Iranian Hostage Crisis (11/4/79)
Jimmy Carter (Students of Another Colour)
80s —
Sugarhill Records
ON-U Sound Records
Fats Comet
Gary Clail
Mark Stewart

1989 — TACK>>HEAD “Break Out The Bubbly” An English-American collaboration, wildly popular in London’s underground. (Friendly As A Hand Grenade and Strange Things [1990] w/Bernard Fowler)

90s — LITTLE AXE (Homecoming) Back to the Blues (and America) Okeh Records/Alligator Records

00s — TACK>>HEAD (The Resurrection)

TODAY — Again in London’s underground, often alone, but still taking The Blues into the future.

“Crying The Blues”
Sam Payne w/ Skip McDonald
2006 — ON-U Sound
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English Appreciation — As it has been since 1985, English Musical Royalty has always recognized the virtuosity of Skip McDonald and his Sugar Hill, Tack>>Head, and Living Colour mates. In 2006, after signing with Peter Gabriel‘s Real World Records, Little Axe went to England to do the first session for what would become Stone Cold Ohio, Skip’s first record for Gabriel and Real World Records.

The studio was in the countryside, just out of London, part of Gabriel’s 100-acre estate. just outside of London. Coincidentally, Skip and the band were scheduled on the weekend Real World Records was throwing a party to celebrate its 20th Anniversary.
Taking advantage of the good timing, Gabriel asked Skip if he would consider playing the party. Skip was honored, and happily accepted the invitation.
So impressed was Gabriel’s friend Robert Plant, at the time just another appreciative fan, he asked if he and Peter might join the band onstage. Both did, and with Skip and the band, played a near hour-long encore, featuring a number of Led Zeppelin and Genesis tunes, and bringing the day’s festivities to a climactic end.
After, Plant asked Skip if he and the band would open the West Coast America Tour he had scheduled later that summer (2006).
LITTLE AXE DISCOGRAPHY

1950s — When Skip McDonald was a boy in Dayton, Ohio, his father played guitar in the neighborhood Baptist church. As long as he can remember, Skip was always interested in his father’s music, and it wasn’t long before his father bought him a guitar, and began teaching him to play gospel music, and sing in the church choir.
Skip continued to play gospel into his teens, but he also developed an interest in Jazz, Blues, and Doo-Wop, playing in bands with his high school mates.
1964 — Skip and his band, The Entertainers (including Harold Sargent) was making itself know in and around Dayton, Ohio.
Now, two years out of high school and their confidence growing, Skip and Harold decided to move, and take their chances in New York City.
Uptown (Harlem) clubs. After show jams. Chi-lites, Spinners, Motown. Joe Robinson, mobster about town. Black and Jew (Morris Levy) partners in music “business” crime.
1968 — Ohio Players (Friends from Back Home)
Enjoying life in the city, but finding it difficult to earn a living, Skip and The Entertainers moved to Hartford, Connecticut … Half way between New York City and Boston, where they could find work, and where they could afford rent.
McDonald formed the group Wood Brass & Steel in 1973 with bass guitarist Doug Wimbish and drummer Harold Sargent.
The group recorded two albums before their 1979 breakup.
Sugar Hill Records
“The Message”
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.
Melle Mel (NOT Grandmaster Flash)

After leaving Sugarhill, McDonald, Wimbish, and drummer Keith LeBlanc began working with

Adrian Sherwood, and eventually formed the trio into the industrial/dub group Tackhead, initially fronted by Gary Clail and later Bernard Fowler. McDonald would also collaborate with Sherwood on other projects, including albums by African Head Charge and Mark Stewart.

In the 1990s, McDonald assumed the moniker “Little Axe” and began moving from hip hop to a form of blues that drew from an array of musical influences, including dub, R&B, gospel, and jazz. He has been working steadily as a studio musician, recording both his own blues albums, continuing to appear as a guest act on other artists’ albums as well. His most recent albums have been released on Real World Records. Alan Glen is often featured on harmonica on these albums.

In 2009 he collaborated with Mauritanian musician Daby Touré to produce a record titled Call My Name.

As of 2016, he still tours and gigs regularly, has a loyal following and is in regular demand for session work as a guitarist.

discography
Never Turn Back (1993) Spin
The Wolf that House Built (1994) Okeh/Wired
Slow Fuse (1996) Wired
Hard Grind (2002) On-U Sound
Champagne & Grits (2004) Real World/Virgin
Stone Cold Ohio (2006) Real World/Virgin
Bought for a Dollar, Sold for a Dime (2010) Real World
If You Want Loyalty Buy a Dog (2011) On-U Sound
Wanted – Live 1996 (2012) Little Axe Recordings
Return (2013) Echo Beach
One Man – One Night (2016) 12:10 Records
London Blues (2017) Echo Beach

Bought for a Dollar, Sold for a Dime
If You Want Loyalty Buy a Dog
Return

“Great Heroes”
Skip “Little Axe” McDonald
London Blues
2017 —
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