Tramp (Lowell Fulson song)

Jules Bihari, the owner of Fulson's label, Kent Records, disliked the song at first: "Oh, he hated 'Tramp', Jules [Bihari] did.", Fulson recalled.[2] However, when Bihari previewed the song for two influential disc jockeys, the response was "Hush! Man, get me my copy, quick. You sitting on a gold mine, talking about you want to hear some blues. You better get that record out."[2] Fulson elaborated:

And they [Kent] did, they followed his [Bugs Scruggs] advice because he was a disc jockey. And so they took them some copies, and they just had a few pressed up, hadn't even thought about putting it out. But after I got with Bugs and Paw-Paw [Birmingham, Alabama, DJ], we laughed and joked and the next thing that I know that thing was making plenty of noise. And then Otis Redding jumped all over it, which I didn't mind a bit. But I said, "I wished you had given me another week." He took it right on to the pop field, you know.[2]

When Kent released it as a single, "Tramp" became a hit, peaking at number five in the Billboard R&B chart.[1] The song was also Fulson's most popular single in the broader, pop-oriented Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it reached number 52.[1]

As one of Fulson's best-known songs, "Tramp" appears on numerous compilations, including the popular 1967 Kent album, also titled Tramp.[2] For the album cover, Fulson, who normally wore suits, posed dressed up as a railroad yard hobo:

Them kids sat up all night making them jeans, sewing rags and things on 'em. They tried to make me look as ragged as they could. I had a Dobbs hat. So I said, now, if they paying attention to my hat, they know I ain't a bum 'cause I couldn't buy this hat ... So I talked 'em out of [wearing a Moms Mabley-type] hat; I wore my hat.[2]

Fulson's "Tramp" has been described as a "comfortably laid-back but groovin' soul-blues workout" and "a loping funk-injected workout [which restored] the guitarist to R&B stardom", by AllMusic reviewers.[3][4] The entertainment magazine LA Weekly called it "a near-perfect slice of barbecued funk".[5]

Otis Redding recorded "Tramp" as a duet with Carla Thomas for Stax Records. The song was first included on the joint album by Redding and Thomas, King & Queen (1967). Described as "playful" by Dahl, it was released as a single only months after Fulson's. Credited to "Otis and Carla", the duo's version outsold Fulson's original[4] and peaked at number two on Billboard's Top Selling R&B singles and number 26 on the Hot 100 charts.[1]

In Dynamic Duets: The Best Pop Collaborations from 1955 to 1999, author Bob Leszczak describes their rendition:

Otis and Carla gave "Tramp" their own stamp. They exchange quite a bit of dialogue between them in the song, with Carla putting Otis down because he doesn't wear fine clothes and is in dire need of a haircut ... She's obviously a gold digger and laments that he couldn't afford to buy her fine furs and cool cars. She repeatedly calls him a "tramp" from the Georgia woods ... Otis Redding was born, like "Tramp" says, in the Georgia woods in 1941.[6]

Leszczak points out that the Otis and Carla single peaked higher in the UK, where it reached number 18 on the UK Singles Chart[6] (Fulson's single did not appear in the UK charts). He also notes "the song's beat likely influenced 'You Haven't Done Nothin'' by Stevie Wonder seven years later".[6]

In 1968, Fulson's "Tramp" was used as the basis for "The Champ", an organ riff-driven instrumental by a group of session musicians dubbed the Mohawks.[5] The piece has been "widely sampled in rap for this riff and for its breakbeat rhythm".[7]

In 1985, Salt-n-Pepa sampled the Otis and Carla rendition of the song, but kept the original title.[8] Selected as number six in the list of "Vibe's 10 Greatest Otis Redding-sampled Songs", their rendition is described as "the perfect vehicle for the female hip-hop pioneers’ brazen diss of the cheating opposite sex".[8] The duo's song reached number 31 on Billboard's Hot Black Singles chart.[1]

In 1991, DJ Muggs "made 'Tramp' the principal building block of 'How I Could Just Kill a Man,' the grimy fuck-it-all gun blast that announced the arrival of Cypress Hill", according to LA Weekly's Josh Kun.[5] He added, "The song was the highlight of Cypress Hill's 1991 debut album, which sounded like nothing else in hip-hop, east or west."[5]