It seems like I've heard this song on the radio at least once even this year, and most likely last year as well. with several "eclectic" music programs), or KJZZ (K-Jazz), another public radio station in So Cal. Or, was I hearing the Luther Vandross version on stations such as KCRW (Public radio in L.A. Did they play the original Stevie Wonder version back in the days of 93 KHJ (Los Angeles) and KISS-FM? Or, a year later, was it Kenny Rankin's version that got all the airplay? (The record I have is a DJ Promo, with "Creepin'" on the side marked "PLUG SIDE".) Ever been aware of a song that's had so much airplay that you don't even remember what decade it's from? It's like that. This song has been in my head off and on for I don't even remember how many years, and yet I can't remember where I was hearing it, or when it started. Maybe all three versions have been getting subconsciously loaded into my brain over the past several decades, only to finally be noticed by my conscious mind in a way to make me discover that it's not among the 16000 or so songs I already have, making me seek out a recording to own. Then there's Luther Vandross, which also hits familiar notes but departs as well. Yet, I don't remember the harmonica part at all, and there are parts missing that are present in the Kenny Rankin version, and yet that version also departs from where my brain wants to go with the song too. The original Stevie Wonder version certainly hits a lot of familiar "chords" if you will, to make me think I heard that version a lot. Of course, research is made more difficult by the fact that there are other songs called "Creepin'" NOT written by Stevie Wonder, including one apparently very popular recent country version which is the one you get when you look in Wikipedia.Īnyway, several hours of YouTube listening, and attempts to figure out which covers would have received a lot of airplay, I wound up with this: (Many covers of the song are farther away from the original that it couldn't be those, but I would not be surprised if at least one instrumental cover has had enough airplay to be also recorded in my brain somewhere.) Off to Google I went, to discover that the song was written by and first performed by Stevie Wonder, so sampling that, It also sounded very familiar, but didn't seem to be quite what I was looking for. It sounded so familiar, yet something was a little off from how I remember it, so I figured this wasn't the most popular version of the song that I remember.
Such was the case when I dug out "Creepin'" by Kenny Rankin, on a 45 RPM record.
One thing I love about buying and digging through boxes of random records is not only the discovery of new music, but the (re)discovery of music that was just below my radar, that I never collected.