There's a chance you've never heard of the 1960's American soul band, The Winstons, but there's almost no doubt that you've heard their contributions to music over the years. Their song, "Amen Brother," is the second most sampled song of all-time, mainly because of the "Amen" break drum composition within it. The four-bar composition has been used countless times over the years in hip-hop, dance, techno, to just name a few genres. For example, N.W.A. used the break on their track, "Straight Outta Compton."
Unfortunately, none of the members of the band ever received any royalties or clearance fees for the song. That was until this past February, when a U.K.-based DJ, Martyn Webster, launched a GoFundMe to try and get the remaining living member of the band paid for his contributions. Webster was inspired to start the fundraiser after he watched a BBC documentary on the band from 2011, where the group's drummer, Richard Spencer, talked about the frustrations about never getting paid for the song being sampled countless times.
The GoFundMe eventually raised over $35,000 and Spencer received the check in full in an emotional video that was later posted to FaceBook. Of course, this is just a small fraction of what the band was probably owed from the use of the sample over the years, but it's very cool that they he compensated in some way for their contribution to music history.
