JOCK JAMS VOLUME 4 PROFESSIONAL
JOCK JAMS VOLUME 4 SERIES

Lynch enlisted the help of Ray Castoldi, the organist and music director at Madison Square Garden.

Monica Lynch with RuPaul, left, in Times Square in 1992. What if Tommy Boy Records put out a compilation album of those songs?Īs Lynch would put it: “Hey, it’s usually the really dumb and really simple ideas that work.” The songs would likely be cheap to license. The playlist made her think about her childhood trips to Chicago Stadium - the sound of the organ and the rock and hip-hop songs that revved up the crowd. Looking for the next big seller, Lynch found herself in a suite at a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, listening to the music playing on the arena’s PA system.

JOCK JAMS VOLUME 4 SERIES

In a 1992 profile, The New York Times called Lynch, a white woman in her mid-30s, the “high priestess of hip-hop.”Īround that time, the label found success with a series of compilation albums called “MTV Party to Go,” which featured curated dance tracks from various artists. Lynch became the label’s president in 1985, shepherded it through the decade and watched it take off in the early ’90s, when acts like De La Soul, Digital Underground and Queen Latifah ushered in a new era of alternative rap. In 1981, seeking more stable work, she answered an ad in The Village Voice and became the first employee of Tommy Boy Records, a fledgling record label that specialized in rap music. She reveled in the party scene, waited tables and spent time as a topless dancer in a midtown nightclub. Her mother worked in ticket sales for the Bulls and Blackhawks she loved hockey and Black music and exhibited a genuine rebellious streak.īy 1978, the year after Faust launched a craze, Lynch moved to New York. Lynch had grown up in the suburban enclave of Oak Park, Ill. And though we had no word for the phenomenon at the time, it’s clear now.Īround the time Faust was hitting her groove, another young Chicago woman named Monica Lynch became a regular at games at Chicago Stadium. Faust, who also played the organ at Chicago Stadium, was awarded an RIAA Gold Record. The song was re-released by Mercury Records. “I never heard people sing like that before,” Faust said. It was a hot summer evening, a pennant race in Chicago. She loved any track that elicited a response. She liked to push the musical envelope, to add popular rock songs to her rotation of organ classics. In another version, Faust had actually been playing the song for years.

Nancy Faust working a White Sox game in 2005. As Faust said years later, “It created quite a stir.” The crowd sang along to the earworm chorus and the stadium rocked. 1 single from 1969 by a band called Steam. At that moment, Faust began playing the song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” a No. In one version of the story, Faust was sitting at her organ in summer 1977, during a game against the Kansas City Royals, when the opposing manager, Whitey Herzog, pulled a pitcher from the game. But Faust decided to take a chance, to embark on an experiment of sorts, and less than a decade later, the choice would change the course of sports history. The tradition of organ music in baseball dated back just three decades, to Wrigley Field in 1941. The latter did not feel like a sustainable career. When she finished her degree in psychology, she could do one of two things: She could become a teacher or she could play the organ for the White Sox. She spent her childhood mastering the instrument, and by the late ‘60s, she was studying at North Park University, balancing her classes with a side gig as a party musician. When she was 4, she started fiddling on her family’s organ.

JOCK JAMS VOLUME 4 PROFESSIONAL

She had grown up in Chicago, her mother working as a professional musician. She was blonde and thin and a ballpark staple, a soundtrack for the South Side summer.

Let’s go back, before the dawn of “Jock Jams,” before canned house music blared in NBA arenas, before a bright orange compact disc infiltrated ’90s culture, before the Dutch pop group 2 Unlimited asked the existential question of the decade: “Y’all ready for this?” Let’s start with a young musician in Chicago named Nancy Faust.įaust was the White Sox’ stadium organist for 41 years, starting at Comiskey Park in 1970. a song from a series of compilation albums released by Tommy Boy Records and ESPN 4. a piece of rock or hip-hop music that pumps up its listener and evokes memories of the ’90s 3. an upbeat, sometimes electronic, song or track that is often played at sports arenas or stadiums.

Jock jams volume 4