Another song, "Impeach the President", which he recorded and produced with a high school group, the Honey Drippers, has had one of the most sampled drum tracks in hip hop music.
Their first single, "Who's That Knockin'", reached number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1958,[2] with Claude Johnson—later of the duo Don and Juan—on lead vocal.
The songs are raw and outspoken, and the suffering's in the voice even more than the words—he strains its paradoxically mellow limits sometimes, so seekers after the Perfect Note should seek elsewhere.
"[5] In 1973, Hammond discovered a group of African-American high school students from Jamaica High School in Jamaica, Queens, named the Honey Drippers (not to be confused with Robert Plant's project of the same name), and decided to record some songs with them, which he released on his Alaga label.
[1] Pioneering hip hop producer Marley Marl used the drum intro from "Impeach the President" as the breakbeat for the 1985 song "The Bridge" by MC Shan.
From 1979, he continued to release a string of soul singles and albums, on his own Three Gems record label, initially based in New York and later in Allendale, South Carolina.