Larry Smith

Larry Smith, Jam Master Jay, DMC and DJ Run

The name Larry Smith may be familiar with some of you. Maybe not as memorable as say, Rick Rubin or Russell Simmons perhaps but just as important.

Larry grew up as a bass player from the same neighbourhood as Run DMC and would later become heavily involved with them. He would also produce a lot of Whodini's early work giving them a different almost 'new wave' electronic sound.
You know that beat behind Sucker MC's? That was originally used on a song called Action by a group called Orange Krush. This band was put together by Smith alongside Kurtis Blow to help him perform live onstage.Action was sung by a young Alyson Williams (of Sleeptalk fame) and the high-pitched, funny voice on the intro was actually Russell Simmons.

Larry liked the beat so much that he reprogrammed it into an Oberheim DMX drum machine and called it the "Krush Groove". He went on to use the same beat on a few other Run DMC tracks, too.

I want to say a big, big thanks to Roosevelt Taylor who posted this link on the ABU Facebook Page the other day, without which I never would've found out Larry's current situation.
Sadly Larry is not doing too well and is in fact in a New York City "bare-bones nursing home". A far cry from what he is remembered as.
Please check out the We Love Larry Smith Facebook page if you can and support this great man.