It was such a unique, fresh angle to take the genre, it couldn't help but stand out from the pack. Yet we mostly remember this album for the times he goes blues crooner ( Ends, What It's Like, Today, Death Comes Callin'). About two-thirds of Whitey Ford Sings The Blues doesn't shake the rap foundations the slightest. And it's all perfectly solid rappity-rap that Everlast displays. Throughout, you get Everlast rapping about getting money ( Money (Dollar Bill)), haters ( Tired), drug abuse ( Painkillers), rockin' the mic ( Praise The Lord), and funky beats ( Funky Beat). Heck, the intro is a parody of The Fat Boys, about as retro as rap could get in '98. Some of rap's respected talents drop in for a cameo (Prince Paul, Guru, Sadat X with a few verses), and there's a fair bit of the traditional hippity-hop throughout the album. Not many, I wager, throwing those expecting more blues-hop in the vein of mega-charter What It's Like for a loop when throwing on Whitey Ford Sings The Blues. Heck, how many outside hip-hop circles even knew there was an 'Everlast' as part of House Of Pain?
Hey, rap and rock were already mingling by the late '90s, so why not try the same thing with the blues? It has a similar origin story (music of poor black communities co-opted by a lot of white guys), and it had been so long since Everlast's first album, perhaps the public would buy him as a road-weary troubadour of the down-trodden. That only lasted a half-decade though, so Everlast went back to the solo scene, taking on a new persona of 'Whitey Ford', and put some learned guitar skills to use. Schrody soon found himself teaming up with Danny Boy and DJ Lethal, creating a little group by the name of House Of Pain - you've definitely heard of them. Fortunately, he also realized label management was forcing him into a mould he didn't fit, so Mr. Not that I blame the initial apathy, his 1989 debut Forever Everlasting one corny-ass example of rap, even with an Ice-T bump (that video for The Rhythm!). Yet one name always slips from this discussion, despite being one of hip-hop's most successful artists throughout the '90s, one Erik Schrody. The bottom line is there's always someone out there called upon to be the torch-bearer of Caucasian representation in rap. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of this tale here, as I only have a mere, and it's a topic that could cover a couple volumes worth of perspectives. Throughout hip-hop's history, there's been the ongoing side-story of The Next Great White Hope.