minute 26 seconds in.
- The band behind it were soul funk band The Winstons and the drummer was G.C. Coleman who was born in 1944 and died in 2006.
- The other band members were Richard L Spencer (lead singer and tenor saxophone), Phil Tolotta (organ co-lead vocals), Ray Maritano (alto saxophone, backing vocals) Quincy Mattison (guitar, backing vocals) and Sonny Pekerol (bass guitar, backing vocals).
- The song Amen Brother was the B side of the A side Colour him Father released in spring 1969 in Atlanta Georgia.
- The B side was regarded as largely ignored at the time and was really just a filler.
- It is loosely based on an old gospel song called Amen, Brother. Elements of it came from a guitar riff the legendary R&B musician Curtis Mayfield had once played to Spencer.
- The song is an instrumental and legend has it that they could not find a suitable miuddle section to make it long enough so tried just letting GC Coleman cut loose, and the rest as they say is history.
- "The band didn't really want to rehearse the song. We weren't there to do 'original', we were a bar band. The guys were a little testy, they wanted leisure time, so I was kind of rushing it," says Spencer.
- Halfway through the track, the other instruments fall silent as drummer GC Coleman pounds away on his own for four bars. "In about 20 minutes, we had a playable song," Spencer said.
- Exactly who created the drum break isn't clear. Spencer says he directed it, while Phil Tolotta, the only other surviving member of the band, disagrees - he says the solo was "pure GC".
- The A-side of the record, Color Him Father, became a 1969 top 10 R&B hit in the US and won a Grammy award the following year.
- Despite their initial chart success, The Winstons struggled to get bookings as a mixed-race group playing in the southern states of the US and split up in 1970.
- It is estimated that the song (well the drum break) has been sampled over 2300 times.
- Nobody in the Winston's ever saw any royalties. In the 1980s sampling was still a legal grey area - today musicians have to get permission from the original artist or the copyright holder.
- Richard L Spencer, lead singer of The Winstons. "It felt like plagiarism and I felt ripped off and raped, I come from an era where you didn't steal people's ideas."
- Coleman developed a drug addiction and died homeless and destitute on the streets of Atlanta in 2006. Spencer thinks it is unlikely that he was aware of the impact of his drum solo recorded decades earlier.
- An internet campaign raised money for Spencer who owns the copyright for Amen, Brother. Set up by British DJs Martyn Webster and Steve Theobald, the campaign snowballed far beyond their expectations through support from music fans and even some of the big name artists who have used the distinctive sound to help build their careers. So far it's gathered more than £14,000 ($32,000). "It's about giving something back to a 72-year-old man with heart problems who has never seen really seen a penny other than his royalties from the original release," says Theobald.
- Spencer retired from music more than 40 years ago and is now a novelist living in North Carolina. Although he was angry when he first heard the Amen break was being sampled, he now feels more at peace with it. "It's not the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm a black man in America and the fact that someone wants to use something I created - that's flattering," he says.
- Spencer says of the fundraising campaign. "They didn't have to do that - I didn't even know them. Fifty years on, some young white boys that I've never met, halfway across the world said, 'We're going to give you a gift.' It's probably one of the sweetest things that's happened to me in a long time."
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