Featured Essay: Musings On Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters - Head Hunters (Columbia Records, 1973)

by Matt Horowitz

I’ll readily admit, it’s a bit cliché, yet oddly befitting that the story behind my “first” favorite vinyl record is tied to a CD - well, technically, an SA-CD (a Hybrid/Super-Audio CD.) Prior to inheriting my mom and dad’s collections of Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Alice Cooper, etc. vinyl, I had amassed my own collection of about four 4-per page giant CD binders, which were kept in the trunk of my 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible AT ALL TIMES!

Now, the specific CD we’re talking about here is RS500 from 2003 that came packaged along with Rolling Stone magazine Issue #937, a special collectors issue dubbed The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Rolling Stone’s RS500 SA-CD included special multi-channel versions of nine songs: Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate,” Pink Floyd’s “Money,” The Who’s “Pinball Wizard,” Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man,” Norah Jones’ then-fairly new Come Away with Me, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song,)” Miles Davis’ “Blue In Green,” and finally Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” 

It was the first time I had heard most, if not all of these tracks, but two specifically really stood out to a young impressionable me: Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” and Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man.” So much so, I soon tracked down the corresponding albums from both Dylan & Hancock, Blood On The Tracks (1975) and Head Hunters (1973)–actually, credited to Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters–respectively, on vinyl at either the thrift/antique stores up in Mullica Hill, New Jersey and/or the Cowtown Farmers Market in Woodstown, NJ.

I personally love Bob Dylan, but understand that his music, voice, delivery, etc. are not for everyone; you either love it or hate it. So, we’ll just leave Blood On The Tracks alone for now…but Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters’ Head Hunters was the American pianist, keyboardist, and composer’s twelfth studio album. It’s just four songs, which range in length and runtime of about 6-15 minutes, with the whole Head Hunters LP totaling 41 minutes and 52 seconds. “Watermelon Man” (the track from that fateful RS500 SA-CD) actually dates back about 10 years prior and was first featured on Hancock’s 1962 debut, Takin’ Off.

I guess quite simply put, Head Hunters always has and always will be the epitome of “cool” to me: the meandering, yet extremely well thought-out instrumental sounds heard within, the sheer idea of being bold/brazen enough to call the band The Headhunters and the album Head Hunters, the ascending and ultimately descending whistle sound “Watermelon Man” is effortlessly built, layered, and torn apart around, and the album cover showcasing Hancock wearing a yellow gold-colored African kple kple mask of the Baoulé tribe from the Ivory Coast. 

The Headhunters band that can be heard effectively ripping it up across Head Hunters included woodwind player Bennie Maupin, bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, drummer Harvey Mason, and, of course, Hancock himself. The Headhunters would continue to back Hancock on his string of next albums, including Thrust (1974), Man-Child (1975), and Flood (1975) with the latter being recorded live in Japan. After their time spent playing with Hancock, The Headhunters would go on to both perform and record as their own singular entity with Hancock producing the group’s 1975 album, Survival of the Fittest. Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters would reunite on record years later with Hancock playing keyboards on select tracks from their 1998 album, Return of The Headhunters!

Head Hunters was ranked at #498 within the book version of Rolling Stone’s The 500 Best Albums of All Time in 2005 and was later ranked at #254 on a 2020 revision. It has been inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, which collects “culturally, historically or aesthetically important” sound recordings from the 20th Century. Head Hunters has since been revered as a key release in Hancock’s career and a defining moment in the genres of Jazz, Funk, Soul, Jazz-Funk, and Hip-Hop and inspired many artists within the years to come. Since its 1973 release, tracks from Head Hunters have been sampled by the likes of Digable Planets, LL Cool J, George Michael, Massive Attack, Shaq, The Getp Boys, 2pac, Frank Zappa, Beck, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Biz Markie, Madlib, Nas, Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim, and more.

Matt Horowitz is a music-lover, vinyl-collector, writer, father, and husband (amongst other things) from New Jersey. He has been running his own music news site, TheWitzard.com, since 2010. Horowitz has conducted and published interviews with everyone from Ice-T & MR. X AKA Afrika Islam to Ben Lee. He has also been published on sites such as NOECHO.net, IDIOTEQ.com, GrownUpRap.com, ThePunkSite.com, post-trash.com, and The Find Mag. In his free time, Matt likes listening to and discover new music, attending Punk/Hardcore shows, spending quality time with his family, drinking craft beers and wine with his wife, Caroline, playing monster trucks with his son, Pete, and cuddling with his newborn daughter, Zoe. Follow Matt Horowitz at @SharpCheddar856 and The Witzard at @thewitzard across socials.

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