THE HISTORY OF FUNK

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Compilation Produced for Release by

PJHtNO ZACH love & DAVID McLEES ^ : Sound Produced by BILL INGLOT

“GET UP I FEEL LIKE BEING LIKE A SEX MACHINE (PART I)" by James Brown: “THINK (ABOUT IT)” by Lyn Collins ® 1972 PolyGram Records, Inc.; “DOING IT TO DEATH” by Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s ® 1973 PolyGram Records. Inc.: and “UP FOR THE DOWN STROKE” by Parliament® 1974 PolyGram Records, Inc.; all under license from PolyGram Special Markets, a Division of PolyGram Group Distribution, Inc. • "THANK YOU FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN,” and “MIGHTY MIGHTY” ® 1974 Sony Music Entertainment, Inc., under license from Sony Music Special Products, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. • “I WANNA KNOW IF IT’S GOOD TO YOU?” licensed from Westbound Records. • “EXPRESS YOURSELF” produced under license from Warner Bros. Records Inc. • “GROOVE ME” licensed from Mataco Records. • “GET UP AND GET DOWN” and “I’LL TAKE YOU THERE” licensed from Fantasy Records. • “FREDDIE’S DEAD (THEME FROM SUPERFLY)” ® 1972 Curtom Records. Inc., licensed from Ichiban. • “GARBAGE MAN” ® 1973 United Artists Records. Inc., courtesy of EMI Records Group/EMI Records, under license from CEMA Special Markets. • “KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ (PART I)” ® 1973 Motown Record Company, L.P.. licensed from Motown Record Company, L.P. • “ME AND BABY BROTHER” ® 1973 Far Out Productions, Inc., licensed from Far Out Productions, Inc. This Compilation ® & © 1993 Rhino Records Inc., 10635 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900

TH

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unk took its name from a black slang expression meaning body odor, but it

wouldn’t wear off as the ’70s wore on. It lasted for at least 15 years, leaving a

body of work as durable and as danceable as anything ever produced.

Funk referred most to the strong bass line, and it became the movement

where R&B’s anonymous studio legends of the ’60s came out from behind the

smartly choreographed vocal groups to become stars, even in the eight-piece

ensembles that characterized the genre; Session bassist James Jamerson had been

Motown’s best-kept secret, and Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins were members of Sly & The Family Stone

and Parliament, respectively. All became stars leading their own bands.

Funk aggressively appropriated the multiamped volume from late-1960s rock bands.

Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton borrowed Vanilla Fudge’s amps for a performance, then decided that

everything he did from then on was going to be heavy.

Funk was sex, prominently displayed on every Ohio Players cover. It was commonly influenced by drugs.

Clinton has said in interviews that P-Funk was influenced by acid in the early ’70s, and friends say that it was

fueled by damn near everything else one could ingest in the years to come. But one would be hard-pressed to

think that Clinton’s “Maggot Brain’’ or “Free Your Mind ... And Your Ass Will Follow” came about

organically. And it definitely had rock ’n’ roll, because ...

Funk was when R&B went eclectic. Zapp’s Roger Troutman, whose hit recordings marked the end of the

funk era, got his start with help from Collins and Clinton. Asked about other influences, he names the people

one would expect, like James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. But he also mentions Led Zeppelin, Chet Atkins, the

Stax label sound, Aretha Franklin, Norman Whitfield-era Temptations, Barry White, and Hank Williams Sr. In

other words, “everything except opera and polka.” And his isn’t an unusual list; most of the artists here help

form a visible line from Zappa to Zapp. There’s even a former Mother Of Invention represented on these

volumes.

Funk was the street music of its time. Funkadelic might have envisioned “One Nation Under A Groove”;

Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White may have been one of many artists with crossover dreams. But even

when its creators saw it as inclusive — not exclusive — funk had the power to frighten and confound adult

white America, just as rap does now. Some might find “Flash Light” or “The Payback” soothing and nostalgic

©

now; to the older generation, it was noise.

That said, funk was as much an evolution as a revolution. Some musicians may have felt overregimented in

the late ’60s; some critics say the Motown hit formula didn’t speak to the changing social climate. When S( <

The Family Stone unleashed “Dance To The Music” in January 1968, the most recent #1 R&B hits had been

prefunk predecessors “Funky Broadway,” “Cold Sweat,” “Chain Of Fools,” “Soul Man,” and “I Heard It

Through The Grapevjjie.” Funk was a case of R&B going from strength to strength.

And by the time we start this collection in 1970, James Brown had already cut “Say It Loud - I’m Black

And I’m Proud.” The Isley Brothers had already cut “It’s Your Thing,” even before inviting their younger

siblings into the act. Despite claims that Motown is no longer the Sound of Young America, The Temptations

had already been living on “Cloud Nine,” and

“Psychedelic Shack” was a few weeks away,

courtesy of producer Norman Whitfield.

The difference, perhaps, is that Whitfield, say,

tended to co-opt the funk into packages that still

sounded like Motown records. James Brown, by

the early ’70s, had already given himself over to it.

Besides, J. B. was a more likely vehicle for the funk

than Motown. By “Cold Sweat,” he was already

done with such niceties as melody and song

structure, and that was 1967!

“Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex

Machine (Part I)” is always portrayed as the

record on which James reinvented himself and, in

doing so, gave himself another half-decade’s worth

of hits. You can’t deny its importance, and you

wouldn’t want to, but it is worth noting that

“Funky Drummer” was two singles earlier; if it

wasn’t as big a hit then, it has been just as

influential since, judging from the number of times

it has been sampled. “Sex Machine” was cut just James Brown

after Brown’s old band was replaced by eight guys

from Cincinnati, among them guitarist Phelps Collins

atj^ his brother, Bootsy. Brown’s publicist-turned-

discographer, Allen Leeds, recalls seeing it

performed once in concert as a rewrite of Brown’s

older “Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose,” then seeing it

recorded the next day with new lyrics.

If “Sex Machine” was funk’s watershed, a lesser-

known J. B. production would give rap one of its

defining moments. When rappers Rob Base & DJ EZ-

Rock took the chorus and one of the yelps from Lyn

Collins’ “Think (About It),” James Brown samples

were already ubiquitous, but “It Takes Two” was still

the shout heard ’round the world. By the time

rappers gave up the Godfather for jazz loops a few

years later, he’d been sampled hundreds, if not

thousands, of times. For that reason, it’s a little hard

now to listen to “Think” and not think of Collins’

vocals here as sampled, too ... but they’re real. And

there is much irony in the guy who declared it a

man’s man’s man’s world now writing, “You’re not

doing anything for us that we can’t do for ourselves,” Earth, Wind & Fire

on behalf of the sisters.

Early R&B star Hank Ballard once told an interviewer that Brown, who produced a single for Ballard in

the early ’70s, had stopped promoting that record because James couldn’t handle the thought of somebody in

his production stable having a bigger hit than him. How, then, do you explain the success of “Doing It To

Death,” credited to Brown’s sidekick Fred Wesley and his band The J.B.’s, but essentially a Brown single

also? “Doing It To Death” went gold and spent two weeks at #1 R&B, making it a bigger single than Brown

had under his own name in 1973. It certainly delivers on Brown’s promise of a “funky good time,” but I can’t

help hearing an odd resemblance in tempo and structure to Duane Eddy’s ’50s instrumental “Forty Miles Of

Bad Road,” even if nobody else has thus far.

Like a lot of early-’70s vocal groups, especially The Chi-Lites, Ron Banks and the Dramatics were taking a

lot of their first cues from the Whitfield-era Temptations. But they also owed a debt to James Brown, tur^ g

those exhortations to “get up” on “Sex Machine” into the pile-driving funk of “Get Up And Get Down” a

year later. Eventually, both The Chi-Lites and the Dramatics would find their own voices through balladry; the

next Dramatics single was their signature hit, “In The Rain.”

Brown was one of the four fathers of funk represented here, the others being Clinton, Curtis Mayfield,

and Sly Stone: By 1970, Sly’s interracial rock/R&B fusion Family Stone had already done much to relandscape

R&B music. Unlike the P-Funkers with their eclectic bag of influences, Larry Graham swears Sly was little

influenced by anybody else. “Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin” showcases Graham’s “thumping

and plucking” bass style, something he developed to compensate for the lack of a drummer in a previous

band.

Dave Marsh calls “Thank You” a “poison” record. Sly lashing out once he realized that “Stand!” and

“Dance To The Music” weren’t going to bring about hippie utopia. That would certainly make Janet Jackson’s

decision to rewrite “Thank You” into “Rhythm Nation” all the more ironic, but I think Sly may have been a

tad more optimistic. After all, he says he was wrestling with the devil and winning, and we all know how long

that would last.

Besides, Sly was expecting results after two years. Former Impressions leader Curtis Mayfield at least had

given the process a little time, having taken from 1964 to 1970 to get from “Keep On Pushing to If There s

A Hell Below We’re All Going To Go.” Maybe it was a function of working without an eight-piece horn

section, or maybe it was just the granny glasses, but Mayfield always struck one as the most subtle, most

contemplative of all the funkateers — more akin to pop’s singer-songwriters than the acid rockers. Alongside

Chaka Khan and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey, he was one of the few funksters who could not only jam

but sing equally as well. And while EW&F and Isaac Hayes had already contributed to the burgeoning

blaxploitation film scene, the Superfly soundtrack, featuring “Freddie’s Dead (Theme From Superfly),”

remains blaxploitation’s most fully realized score.

George Clinton, despite his reputation, could be subtle, too, on occasion. Despite the wave of acid

nightmare guitars that surges back and forth across it, Funkadelic’s “I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You?”

— one of the straighten moments from Free Your Mind — is really just the Parliaments’ deceptively normal “(I

Wanna) Testify” brought to a climax. Bassist Bernie Worrell calls this “one of the funkiest songs I know” and.

after three Funkadelic singles, the one where the P-Funk sound truly gelled. While the bulk of the writing

would eventually fall to George, Bernie, and Bootsy, other funk mobbers such as

Bi^ Nelson, Ernie Harris, and Eddie Hazel were still part of the mix around this

time.

Funkadelic was more admired than successful through the early 70s, cranking

out records that, at best, made the R&B top 25. It wasn’t, in Clinton’s mind,

meant to be a hit singles machine anyway. Clinton left his hit-making skills to his

other band. Parliament, who, after a three-year hiatus in 1974, rang up a string of

chart successes. P-Funk song titles were often chosen to motivate the group

internally. That’s the case with “Up For The Down Stroke,” and taken with

“On The Verge Of Getting It On” and “Tear The Roof Off The Sucker (Give Up

The Funk)” it forms a trilogy of P-Funk’s accelerating fortunes. “Down Stroke” is

also the record where Bootsy returns after a few years away from the P-Funk

troops.

James, Sly, George, and Curtis always get their due as funk’s founders. The

influence of Southern R&B beyond J. B., however, is often overlooked, perhaps

because there’s no other central figure. But you’ve got to credit the influence of

the Deep South, starting with Memphis and the jerky midtempo groove that

Steve Cropper and Jerry Wexler came up with for “In The Midnight Hour.” If

funk was the process by which the straight R&B of the ’60s became raw and

nasty, most Southern R&B records had been funky for years.

New Orleans, in particular, was always the home of the rawest records in

R&B, songs that didn’t sound like they could have come from anywhere else.

King Floyd wrote “Groove Me,” in New Orleans in the mid-’60s. Four years

later, he and three other local artists went to Malaco Studios in Jackson,

Mississippi, for a session. Floyd cut “Groove Me” and Jean Knight cut “Mr. Big

Stuff.” None of the tracks were picked up by a label right away, so Malaco put

out “Groove Me” itself, as a B-side, and it exploded. The bassist was the late

Vernie Robbins; the drummer, James Stroud, later a successful country producer/label boss.

The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” brought together two legendary Southern cities — Memphis

©

and Muscle Shoals. Stax president Al Bell says the song came to him when he wandered off to be alone at his

younger brother’s wake. Bell later cut the track with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm

Section, singing the guide vocal himself, then came back to Memphis for the ^

Staple Singers’ vocals. While most of the songs on this collection have been

sampled extensively, “I’ll Take You There” is one of the few to be successfully

remade, becoming an R&B hit for Be Be & Ce Ce Winans in the early ’90s.

War’s “Me And Baby Brother” is seemingly exuberant, especially by the

standards of their signature songs like “The World Is A Ghetto” or “Slipping

Into Darkness.” However, it is thematically similar to those songs judging from

the line — “Shot my baby brother/And they called it law and order.” War

producer/mentor Jerry Goldstein says the song was written several years earlier.

It appeared in a live version on All Day Music, didn’t fit the subsequent concept

LP The World Is A Ghetto, but resurfaced in 1973 for Deliver The Word. It’s still a

staple in the band’s live sets.

Songs resurfaced often in funk — Brown and Clinton, in particular, would

remake their own songs on more than one occasion. Groups could resurface,

too. Despite funk’s reputation as a break from the past, rather than a logical

progression, James and George were hardly the only veteran hit-makers to

come back in a new but untidy package. The Ohio Players had been around since

the late ’50s in various forms; Ike Turner, represented here by his Family Vibes,

goes back to the early-’50s roots of rock ’n’ roll and I973’s “Garbage Man,”

whose protagonist tries to woo a woman with used merchandise, is an

appropriate metaphor in more than one way. If it seems like the world’s worst

pickup line, consider the current preponderance of locally successful rap records

in New Orleans where guys brag about scoring with women for a pork chop, a

book of food stamps, and a Popeye’s two-piece white meat chicken combo.

Another veteran represented here is former Temptation Eddie Kendricks,

who never really took up permanent residence in Funkytown, but made an

entirely convincing stop there with I973’s “Keep On Truckin’ (Part I),” a bona fide disco record six

months before “Rock The Boat” and “Rock Your Baby” — the songs that are considered disco’s

breakthroughs. More than just an eariy-70s mantra,

“Truckin’” was, Kendricks told an interviewer, the

p( sophy that got him through the two years in

which it appeared he wouldn’t repeat his success with

the Temps.

Like a lot of the bands here, Charles Wright &

The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band came to

prominence as an instrumental act. Their first hit,

“Spreadin’ Honey,” was the apparent inspiration for

“6,” the mid-’80s R&B hit for Prince’s jazz-funk side

project Madhouse. Somebody must have encouraged

Wright to express himself vocally. He did and hit with

“Express Yourself,” which N.W.A. would adapt

into one of their early singles 17 years later.

Earth, Wind & Fire would go on to be one of the

most successful crossover acts of the decade, but in

1974 they were still a largely underground

phenomenon, as their major accomplishment to date

had been the score of Melvin Van Peebles’

blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadass Song.

Even then, however, EW&F was already diverse. They

could cover pop ballads like “Make It With You,” they could sound a lot like Santana (“Evil”), or they could be

funkily aggressive as on “Mighty Mighty.” The lyrics are the “Head To The Sky”-type advice that would

typify the group for years; the groove is suspiciously close to the one that EW&F’s Maurice White would craft

for The Emotions on “I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love.”

Curtis Mayfield

—Sean Ross

©

Thanks to James Alexander, Dr. Bobby Brown, Tommy Couch, Bill Curtis, Charles Fach, jerry Goldstein, Robin

McBride, Robert Parissi, David Porter, Irwin Steinberg, Larry Troutman, Roger Troutman,

Tom Vickers, Adam White, and Bernie Worrell.

-r.-m-KT-F: a. SEX - James Brown (Brown/Byrd/Lenhoff) (King single #6318, 6/70; R&B #2, Pop #15)

2. -x-xx^na-K -sroxT C BE nxxGE EEF ^G-xw - Sly & The Family Stone (Stewart) (Epic single #10555, 12/69; R&B #/, Pop #1)

3. X KRTO-w XF x^x-'S GOOX> -x-o -STOXT? - Funkadelic (ClintonlNelsonlHazellHf skins) (Westbound single #167, 8/70; R&B #27, Pop #81)

4. EXPX«X:SS XrOXTXC.SEX^F Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (Wright) (Warner Bros, single #7417, 7/70; R&B #3, Pop #12)

5. GX«,oo'VE IKEE - King Floyd (Floyd) (Chimneyville single #435, 9/70; R&B #/, Pop #6)

6. GE-x- xjp ^wx> GE-x- xxo-wnT - Dramatics (Hester) (Volt single #4071, 11/71; R&B #/6, Pop #78)

7. X'EE -x-^KE xroxT -X-^EXXE > The Staple Singers (Isbell) (Stax single #0125, 3/72; R&B #/, Pop #/)

8. "X"^xx3NrxE C-A.boxj'X' XT) - The Female Preacher, Lyn Collins (Brown) (People single #608, 6/72; R&B #9, Pop #66)

CTXXEUXE FX«,0IIX SXTPEXV.FXL.'ST) - Curtis Mayfield (Mayfield) (Curtom single #1975, 7/72; R&B #2, Pop #4)

10. x>oxzwG XT TO DE^TXX - Fred Wesley & The j.B.’s (Brown) (People single #621, 4/73; R&B #/, Pop #22)

I I. G^XXB^GE XKKA.nr - Ike Turner Presents The Family Vibes (Williams) (United Artists single #278, 6/73)

12. KEEP onj TX«,XTOKXN" CP^XXT X) - Eddie Kendricks (Wilson/Poree/Caston) (Tamla single #54238, 8/73; R&B #/, Pop #1)

13. hke ^nTX> bbotxxexx - War (AllenlBrownlDickerson/Jordan/Miller/OskarlScott) (United Artists single #350, 10/73; R&B #18, Pop #15)

14. xtxxGXXTT XKEXGXXT-sr - Earth, Wind & Fire (White/White) (Columbia single #46007, 2/74; R&B #4, Pop #29)

15. XJP FOXX TXXE xxo-WK- SSTXXOKE - Parliament (Clinton/Collins/Haskins/Worrell) (Casablanca single #0104, 6/74; R&B #10, Pop #63)

Note; Numbers in italic (following original single release information) denote peak positions on Billboard’s “Best Selling (& Hot) Soul Singles” and

“Hot 100” charts, respectively - courtesy Billboard Publications, Inc. and Joel Whitburn’s Record Research Publications.

Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions,

the Ohio Players were unavailable for inclusion on this volume.

Compilation Produced for Release by ZACH LOVE & / DAVID McLEES

Sl-.id Produced by BILL INGLOT Research: GARY PETERSON, REGGIE COLLINS,

PATRICK MILLIGAN Project Assistance: GARY STEWART, TOM TROCCOLLI,

LORI MARTIN, MARK PINKUS, SEAN ROSS, CHRIS CLARKE, CHRIS FRAMAN, MARIA BERRY, KEITH JOHNSON

Art Direction: GEOFF GANS Design: SEVIE BATES Photos: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES, Venice, Ca Remastering: BILL INGLOT & KEN PERRY Special Thanks: BILL LEVENSON, JANET GREY,

SHANNON WILLIAMS, BOB FISHER, D.J. MELLOW HAPPINESS, DAMON “S.T.P ” SCHARLATT, SHAWMEL GARLINGTON, THE HOUSE OF RECORDS, Santa Monica, PAUL C. MAWHINNEY of Record-Rama Sound Archives, KIRK TANTER - v/herever he is.

SUGGES~rED LISTENING:

Didn’t It Blow Your Mind! Soul Hits Of The ’70s, Vols. 1-15

(Rhino #’s 70781 -70790 and 70551 -70555)

Pickin’ Up The Pieces: The Best Of The Average White Band (Rhino #71054)

AWB - Cut The Cake (Rhino #71271)

AWB - Soul Searchin’ (Rhino # 71272)

AWB - Person To Person (Rhino # 71270)

James Brown: Startime (Polydor #849 108)

Curis Mayfield & The Impressions: The Anthology (MCA #10664)

Parliament Tear The Roof Off - 1974-1980 (Casablanca #314 514417-2)

ParliamentThe Mothership Connection (Casablanca #94244)

Pimps, Players & Private Eyes (Sire #26624)

Sly & The Family Stone: Anthology (Epic #37071)

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

James Brown Live In America (Rhino Home Video)

Isaac Hayes - The Black /VIoses Of Soul (Rhino Home Video)

Curtis Mayfield: Live At Ronnie Scott’s (Rhino Home Video)

George Clinton With Parliament/Funkadelic - The Mothership Connection (Sony

Home Video)

Cleopatra Jones (Warner Home Video)

The Alod Squad, Vols. 1-5 (New Ventures Video)

Shaft (MGM/UA Home Video)

Superfly (Warner Home Video)

Sly Stone

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