Street Life is a studio album by the American jazz band The Crusaders. It was a top 20 album and represented the peak of the band's commercial popularity. The title track, also called Street Life famously featured singer Randy Crawford. Street Life also hit the disco chart and was re-recorded by Doc Severinsen with Randy Crawford for the crime drama Sharky's Machine, directed by Burt Reynolds
Street Life was written by Joe Sample, an American pianist, keyboard player, and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, he remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991. Beginning in the 1970s, he enjoyed a successful solo career and guested on many recordings by other performers and groups, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and the Supremes. Sample incorporated jazz, gospel, blues, Latin, and classical forms into his music. Born in Houston, Texas, in February, 1939, Sample began to play the piano at age 5. In high school in the 1950s, Sample teamed up with friends, saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Stix Hooper to form a group called The Swingsters. He later met and added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which was to become known as the Modern Jazz Sextet and then eventually The Jazz Crusaders. They brought a distinctive quality that was funky, had rhythmically appealing acoustic piano playing of Sample, who helped steer the group's sound into a fusion between jazz and soul in the late 1960s. The Jazz Crusaders became a strong concert draw during those years. The electric keyboard was fairly new in the sixties, and Sample became one of the instrument's pioneers. He began to use the electric piano and the group hit a commercial high-water mark with Street Life, featuring Randy Crawford on vocals. As well as working with The Crusaders on Street Life, she recorded and dueted with Rick Springfield on the song Taxi Dancer and had five Top 20 hits in the UK, including her 1980 hit, One Day I'll Fly Away, as well as six UK Top 10 albums.
