A Brief History of Funk Music

When groove is the point!

We want the funk!

In my first History of Rock post, I said: The origins of rock are also the origins of blues (and jazz… and hip-hop… and funk… and you get the picture).

Let’s paint more of the picture!

(As a related aside, check out the companion audio podcast that dropped yesterday on this very same topic, what are the chances right? Anyhow back to the regular scheduled programing.)

What Is Funk? (What Is Hip?)

Funk is what happens when rhythm and groove becomes the lead focus. It’s a fundamentally Black American art. An art of dance. An infectious art. The music that became disco that became EDM and was then borrowed and sampled again and again and again.

It came from gospel, jazz, R&B, and soul. The same call-and-response from the early days of rock history. But hell, let’s be bold: Funk comes from James Brown.

It Starts with THE ONE!

The downbeat, the place that the groove repeats, the core.

This blog is going to have a lot of musical examples. Funk should be transmitted before it’s transcribed.

So here’s James Brown himself, the progenitor of the funk. The man that taught Bootsy Collins who taught George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic.

”Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” dropped in 1965, hammering the one, but many musicologists consider “Cold Sweat” the first true funk song:

“Give the drummer some!” And off goes Clyde Stubblefield. One of the greatest of all time. Importantly, it’s also a drum break.

Why does that matter? Well drum breaks are how hip hop starts. Drum breaks are easy to sample. No messy instruments in the way. And when they’re as damn funky as Clyde? Well that’s how you get a number one hit.

Feel the loop. The syncopation in the guitar holding the audience, before the horns join in the dance.

Black and Proud

This is 1968. Put yourself in that world.

Then put on this anthem. Picture it from radio to rallies to dance floors.

Then say it loud!

James Brown was such an incredible performer that at the 1964 T.A.M.I. Show, he so thoroughly upstaged the headlining Rolling Stones that Keith Richards called it the biggest mistake of the band’s career.

Loosy Goosey New Orleans

The story goes that New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer (he played on Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man,” and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”) first used the word “funky” to tell players to dirty it up and make it danceable. Later in his career, a young band asked him if he could keep up with the funk, he said, “I invented this shit.”

And we gotta talk about The Meters. Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli, George Porter Jr., Zigaboo Modeliste came together in 1965 to become The Meters. They then became Allen Toussaint’s house band in 1967, and dropped their self-titled debut album in 1969.

Zigaboo (another of the greatest drummers of all time) took the second-line parade beat and Mardi Gras Indian percussion onto the kit. Here’s Cissy Strut from 1969:

Hear the difference between James Brown’s tight vibes vs. New Orleans’ loose, behind-the-beat swamp? Different kinda funk.

Sly and the Family Stone

Just like in rock history, psychedelics got funky too.

While including different races and different genders, it was the same family stone. The band that looked like the integrated America nobody had built yet. “Everyday People” (1969) rode that straight to the top of the charts, reaching #1.

In that spirit of togetherness, let’s Dance to the Music (1968):

Notably, Cynthia Robinson was co-founder, trumpeter and vocalist, one of the first women horn players featured prominently in a major US band; that’s her voice driving “Dance to the Music.”

And Larry Graham invents electric slap bass “thumpin’ and pluckin’,” thumb = kick, pluck = snare, born out of covering for a missing drummer. (Nuance: upright players slapped strings in NOLA jazz decades earlier.)

The Empire

The second generation of almost any musical genre is absurdly cracked. Funk, of course, was no exception. I think it’s because they come up playing in the bands, like Bootsy Collins (ex-Brown, played on “Sex Machine”), and then pass the wisdom and work on to visionaries like George Clinton, while competing with and being legitimized by giants like Sly.

Also we have to shout out a special mention Clinton’s Mothership and Dr. Funkenstein as a sci-fi alter ego. A funky parallel to Bowie’s Ziggy.

Where It Went

Earth Wind and Fire, Rick James, and Prince each took the funk mantle and pushed it into stadiums. Stevie Wonder went to a session with Chaka Khan, learned she’s an Aries, and wrote “Tell Me Something Good,” which won her and Rufus their first Grammy:

Hear the melding of every funk element above into this gem? It’s stanky, psychedelic, simple and complex, and damn near impossible to listen to without moving. Some of my other favorites like the Brothers Johnson (they’ll get a whole post) and Zapp extended the slap bass and talk box funk into the mid to late 70s and 80s.

Paid Once, Sampled for Eternity

Stubblefield was apocryphally paid only $50 for Funky Drummer. It went on to be sampled on thousands of hip-hop songs, becoming arguably the most-sampled break in recording music history. No royalties.

In NYC, DJ Kool Herc noticed dancers went off on the drum breaks of funk music. So he looped two turntables. Then people breakdanced to those beats. Then the MCs rapped over them. Golden-age boom-bap producers like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and my favorite, J Dilla, filtered the low end to keep the bass warm while looping funk drums.

Grand Upright Music v. Warner Bros was brought to court after Biz Markie (you probably know him from Just a Friend) sampled Gilbert O’Sullivan. The Judge opened with “Thou shalt not steal.” Then Biz titled his next album All Samples Cleared!

That ruling though, helped change hip-hop. G-funk (Dre, DJ Quik, Battlecat) hired live players to replay P-Funk and Dayton grooves instead of sample! And that’s how you get the Roger Troutman talk box vibes of “California Love!”

Future Funk

Funk, of course, lives on, and lives within, most modern pop genres. We’re talking from D’Angelo (RIP!) to Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, to George Clinton on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. The funk persists!

If you’re into it, I’d also recommend my friends, Thumpasaurus, but they might be too funky:

Thank you (falettinme be mice elf agin), internet friends,

Scoob.pizza

Published by Beformer.co