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70's Funk

#21
Turn your missals to the Book of Parliament: Chapter Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome.

"George continued, 'The Placebo Syndrome is like the followers of Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk.. Though they hath the appearance of the Funk, there is no Funk within their souls. And so it is with the Placebo Syndrome (by which George meant 'disco'). Those with ears, let them hear. Those with minds, let them open them to the True Funk, Un-cut Funk, The Bomb, or deeper still, The Mothership Connection."

Then George looked down upon a man, a follower of d'Voidoffunk, with platform shoes, feathered hair, and a polyester leisure suit, and He was moved. He touched the man's feet and said,

"Funk not only moves, but it can remove. Go then and disco no more."

The man arouse and he could then Funk.

And George then said into the crowd, "Free your mind and your ass will follow."

And all saw that it was good.
 
#22
David Hungate (formerly of Toto, long-time Nashville session bassist) once defined Disco as "Rhythm and blues for people who have neither."

Genres are always touchy. What some folks think is funk, others call soul, or R'n'B, etc. Examples of music are always more telling than genre names. P-Funk's "We Want The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)" seems to fall firmly into funk, but what about James Brown's "Sex Machine"- and there's the commonality of Bootsy on bass there. Some overtly commercial disco is great stuff, as long as you know what to expect. What's Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie", except a fun song to play? And if you want to get people's butts out of the chair and on the dance floor, all it takes is the opening piano bit of "I Will Survive". It always gets the women on the floor, and so the men are close behind...

jte
 
#23
bass12 said:
The first part of J.B.'s career was as a soul singer. Funk came from soul and, yes, in many cases there is a fine line between the two. There is no "in a vacuum" funk. Any of the funk bands from the 70s were influenced by soul (many were soul bands who adopted the "new sound"), just as many (if not most or even all) were also influenced by rock. Listen to the guitar in Slave's "Slide"...

Or Funkadelic, for that matter...
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Yes in general I agree. But with James Brown there was always an element of soul in his music just like there always seemed to be an element of funk in it. IMO that's what made him unique.

FWIW, while I love funk music, it just doesn't seem to have the depth of feeling in it that soul music does. But it sure is fun. :)
 
#24
JTE said:
David Hungate (formerly of Toto, long-time Nashville session bassist) once defined Disco as "Rhythm and blues for people who have neither."

Genres are always touchy. What some folks think is funk, others call soul, or R'n'B, etc. Examples of music are always more telling than genre names. P-Funk's "We Want The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)" seems to fall firmly into funk, but what about James Brown's "Sex Machine"- and there's the commonality of Bootsy on bass there. Some overtly commercial disco is great stuff, as long as you know what to expect. What's Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie", except a fun song to play? And if you want to get people's butts out of the chair and on the dance floor, all it takes is the opening piano bit of "I Will Survive". It always gets the women on the floor, and so the men are close behind...

jte
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;)
 
#25
Ray C Parrish said:
Anybody that has ever played tunes like this live knows the effect.....filling the dance floor!

The cover band I play in now plays "Brick House" and "Play That Funky Music" and no matter what kind of crowd it is the dance floor fills up.....mission accomplished!
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those songs need to die:hiding: since they are dance floor fillers, you get some of the most jacked up renditions because drunks will dance to the familiarity of these songs more so than the quality of the performance. although play that funky music was pretty damn white sounding to begin with:D
 
#27
It's simply too easy to dismiss disco as a whole because of what that particular movement became. George Clinton has also said that there were a lot of funky disco records made and that he didn't mind disco on an individual song basis. What a lot of people are reacting to when they bash disco is the industry which grew out of the scene. Disco did, indeed, become formulaic, predictable, clichéd and decidedly unfunky, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The point is, a lot of funk bands were playing disco in the 70s and they were doing it well. In a lot of cases, the line between a group's "funk" repertoire and it's "disco" repertoire was very narrow. Check this out:

 
#28
JTE said:
David Hungate (formerly of Toto, long-time Nashville session bassist) once defined Disco as "Rhythm and blues for people who have neither."

Genres are always touchy. What some folks think is funk, others call soul, or R'n'B, etc. Examples of music are always more telling than genre names. P-Funk's "We Want The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)" seems to fall firmly into funk, but what about James Brown's "Sex Machine"- and there's the commonality of Bootsy on bass there. S

jte
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I'm pretty sure that most funk-heads would agree that "Sex Machine" is pure funk.:)
 
#30
pedro said:
Probably but I bet most soul heads would claim it too.
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Yep.

Funk and soul were interchangeable back then. A lot of that music got relabled after the fact.

People didn't call Mandrill a funk band or a soul band when they were current because they played that and more. The same was true for Kool & The Gang. The Ohio Players. New Birth. And so on. The boxes came later.

Dyke and the Blazers is a group that usually flies under most radar and they were straight up funky in the 70's JB vein. OTOH AWB did School Boy Crush (also in the JB vein IMO) and If I ever Lose This Heaven... kind of hard to put them in a box.
 
#31
I'll throw a little defense up for the much maligned Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever material. Some craft went into those songs[check the rhythm guitar parts] and the bass lines are not your usual disco fare, lots of space in the grooves. And speaking of disco, even after all these years I still dig the bass tone on YMCA.:hiding::D
 
#33
Just in the last 6 months I have been expanding my funk collection. I now enjoy TOP, Ohio Players. I like Earth Wind and Fire although they get a few too many ballads going for my tastes. But I have enjoyed Parliament/Funkadelic for a lot of years. The music is cool, the lyrics and presentation are trippy and well George Clinton is a master. In the book Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis he has unreserved praise for George and his horn and vocal arrangements; stuff that most people would never dream up. For those that aren't aware George produced RHCP album Freaky Styley.
 
#34
jerry said:
I'll throw a little defense up for the much maligned Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever material. Some craft went into those songs[check the rhythm guitar parts] and the bass lines are not your usual disco fare, lots of space in the grooves. And speaking of disco, even after all these years I still dig the bass tone on YMCA.:hiding::D
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The Bee Gees put out well written, well produced material.
 
#37
DougD said:
Theres no such genre as commercial unfunky disco. Unfunky or not, disco is disco funk is funk.
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Apparently you didn't check out some of the links I posted earlier. It's not that simple. The lines between disco and funk were blurred by a lot of bands during the disco era, just as the division between funk and soul was not necessarily blatant with a lot of acts. The Temptations are a perfect example of blurred lines. "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" to "Shakey Ground" to "Law Of The Land" (often considered to be THE proto-disco track). I do believe there were a lot of songs that could be clearly defined as "funk", "soul" or "disco", but there were also a great number that made clear delineation difficult at best.
 

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