"Ease on Down the Road" is a song from the 1975 Broadway musicalThe Wiz, an R&B re-interpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Charlie Smalls–composed tune is the show's version of both "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "We're Off to See the Wizard" from the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. In the song, performed three times during the show, Dorothy and her friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion dance their way down the Yellow Brick Road and give each other words of encouragement. Two versions of the song have been released as charting singles: one associated with the Broadway show by studio group Consumer Rapport in 1975, and a second recorded by Diana Ross and Michael Jackson for the feature-film adaptation of The Wiz.
History
Early versions
The song was performed in the original Broadway production by Stephanie Mills, Hinton Battle, Tiger Haynes, and Ted Ross, who also perform the song on the original 1975 cast album for The Wiz. The song was a number-one disco hit for five non-consecutive weeks in a recording by the disco studio group Consumer Rapport. Produced by Stephen Y. Scheaffer and The Wizmusical arranger Harold Wheeler, the Consumer Rapport version hit the Billboard Soul Singles chart, peaking at #19 and the Hot 100, peaking at #42.
Diana Ross and Michael Jackson version
In 1977, "Ease on Down the Road" was recorded as a duet between Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and released as the theme song of the 1978 film adaptation of The Wiz. As with the rest of the music in the film, the film version of "Ease on Down the Road" was produced by Quincy Jones. The recording was one of Jackson's first collaborations with Quincy Jones, who became his main producer during the late 1970s and 1980s. Released as a single by MCA Records in late summer 1978, the song missed the U.S. Top 40 by one position, peaking at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached #17 on the BillboardHot Soul Singles chart the same year. Allmusic's William Ruhlmann wrote that duet between Jackson and Ross has "spectacular vocal firepower" and that it outperforms the 1975 version by Consumer Rapport. The recording also earned Jackson his first Grammy Award nomination with Ross in the category of Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1979. In 1980, Jackson was a guest on Kraft Salutes Disneyland's 25th Anniversary and, along with Disney characters, performed the song in a medley with the Disney signature song "When You Wish Upon a Star".
In 2015, Saturday Night Live cast members Sasheer Zamata, Michael Che, Jay Pharoah and Kenan Thompson sang part of the song, while respectively portraying Dorothy and her friends in a crossover between The Wiz Live! and the movie The Wizard of Oz. At the end of the sketch, they sang it again while teaching the 1939 Scarecrow how to dance the Dab.
