ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the complex roles "The Streetbeater" plays, with particular attention paid to the broader comedy television landscape and issues of race that were pertinent at the time of the show's original production. With "The Streetbeater," Quincy Jones managed to evoke the everyday African American experience while safely inviting a divided multi-racial public into a particularly charged location—a junkyard in Laura Watts, Los Angeles. Another bridge to folk and blues tradition lies in Jones's loose, live-band-like timing, so unlike the clean soulless studio-musician precision usually heard in sitcom themes. Jones's theme featured the positioning of a hot saxophone recorded close to the mic, allowing it to jam against the echoey harmonica and the Hammond's fast-and-funky melodic lines. The concept of junk is clearly central to the situation and comedy of Sanford and Son; it is literally what the characters survive off of and they are often disparagingly called "junk men," and all viewers would likely hear the junk-like emphases of Jones's theme.
