Where's Angela Hunt's Slow Jam?

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., Oct. 17 2007 at 2:11 PM

Categories: News

Yesterday, in the midst of bouncing back and forth between Jim Schutze and Steve Blow's exchange of love letters, I noticed that Blow has posted to Bold Types a mind-blowing MP3 -- an anti-Proposition 1 rap Blow received from Dave Levinthal, who got it from who knows where. (Sample lyrics: "Let's ease up on the traffic/Let's ease up on the taxes ... To save the Trinity Parkway/Vote No!/You're guaranteed to vote the smart way!") So late yesterday, I called Becky Mayad, spokesperson for the Vote No! Save the Trinity gang, and asked her who wrote and recorded the song. At the time she had no idea. Today, she kinda does.

But first, back to yesterday. After Mayad proved a dead end, I called over to Allyn & Company, which is consulting for the pro-toll road side. Nobody over there had a clue. So, I asked Mayad if maybe Willis Johnson, a Vote No! consultant and Mayor Tom Leppert's former guide through the southern sector, had anything to do with the ad. At 5:53 p.m. Tuesday, she wrote back: "I just got off the phone with Willis ... he didn't have anything to do with it and is trying to track it down."

Then this morning Mayad told me to call Johnson, who's been in meetings all day and whose cell phone voice mail has been full whenever Unfair Park tries to reach him. So I called Mayad again, who has a little more info this afternoon: She tells Unfair Park the song was performed by a local "rap-gospel group" -- Johnson's supposed to call back with the name -- that has no ties to Vote No!, she insists, and that it was never "sanctioned by the campaign." That's despite the tag at the song's end that says, "This political ad is paid by the Vote No! Trinity campaign." And she adds that despite Blow's item, at the moment there are no plans to use the song in any campaign ads. But I've already put it on Schutze's iPod, for grins. --Robert Wilonsky

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