Thursdays with Thurl

Hello, I’m Thurl Bailey. You may know me from the Utah Jazz, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Utah Jazz. I am also an actor, a singer, and a motivational speaker. Your are now a guest in my palace of love. Every Thursday, only on FreeDarko.com, I will be providing the soundtrack to your lives. Specifically, I will be posting a few hoops-blogosphere-relevant musical delights from my archives. Let me now turn it over to my good friend, TrentonHasslesCarmelo.

Thanks, Thurl. So, that’s the deal. We welcome comments, suggestions, and requests. It’s hard to say exactly what will pop up on Thursdays with Thurl, but suffice to say, the selections will be more “What the Kidd Did” (Jason Kidd) than “Whats Up Doc” (Shaq/Fu Schnickens). More “Now You’re Mine” (Gangstarr) than “Basketball” (Kurtis Blow). And more Etan Thomas’ slam poetry than Wayman Tisdale’s smooth jazz. Oh, also, we are doing this sort of half-ass—through yousendit.com (no telling when the link might expire)—as FreeDarko is not a true audioblog. Before we get into this weeks goods, I want to remind you that if you search the FreeDarko archives, you can find previous audio posts, including the FreeDarko anthem, 4-Ize’s “Ron Artest,” Ultramag’s “NBA All-stars 1989” (courtesy of Cocaine Blunts + the only known mention of Randy Pfund’s name in a rap song), and Young Gunz’ laughable New Jersey Nets rendition of “Takeover.” With that said, let’s get into today’s gems:


“The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh,” recently re-released on DVD, is a cult classic (starring Dr. J and many other 70s hoopsters), with a ludicrous plot about some psychic named Mona (played by Stockard Channing) who advises that a struggling NBA club form a team of only players born under the sign, Pisces. The soundtrack is still hard to find, but I did manage to get my hands on this nice groove by Phyllis Hyman, which absurdly enough is a plea to the psychic, Mona, to guide the Pittsburgh team in the right direction. I would give my left leg to see this movie re-made with LeBron cast in the Dr. J role:

Phyllis Hyman – Magic Mona

There was a time—in the early/mid 90s—when hip-hop was good. It was a time when you would leave school in the middle of the day to cop Wu Tang Forever (cf. Catchdubs), when people thought Foxy Brown and Shyheim were the same person, and when Cypress Hill still had credibility. Around this time, I was buying on average an album a week, and I believe that period of reckless spending ended upon picking up “From Where?!?!!!” by (Mad) Skillz. It was with this album that I realized that punchlines and Large Professor cameos do not a classic album maketh. A lot of these albums were simply not timeless, with Skillz epitomizing this truth. However, the man resurfaced many years later with an unreleased album full of Neptunes gems, and for whatever reason (I can’t remember the backstory, but I’m sure you can google it), shortly after the 2004 NBA Finals, he released this mixtape diss to Shaq, enlisting the help of fellow sometimes-Virginian, Ben Wallace. My guess is that Wallace had no idea what he was getting into:

Skillz feat. Ben Wallace – Shaq Diss

This last one is a somewhat disappointing mini-bio of Kevin Garnett, done by Styles P (sometimes) of The Lox. It was included in a KG commercial for And1 Shoes, which indicates how old it is. For Timberwolves fans, this was a time of hope. It was also the last time Styles P would be even remotely associated with the state of Minnesota.

Styles P – Kevin Garnett Commerical

Thurl and I bid you adieu. Come back next Thursday for more instant classix.