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I'm getting into funk...

#21
MysticMichael said:
For the record, Grand Funk Railroad was "funk" in name only. They played rock. Just rock.



Strictly speaking, Motown isn't funk. It's rhythm & blues (R&B) - a closely-related genre to be sure, but not exactly funk per se.

That is all... :hmm:

MM
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I have to admit that I found it a bit weird - and inappropriate - that that the Motown session team are referred to as The Funk Brothers. I also wonder, did they actually refer to themselves as The Funk Brothers back in the day or was that a hip sounding moniker added after the fact?
 
#22
bass12 said:
I have to admit that I found it a bit weird - and inappropriate - that that the Motown session team are referred to as The Funk Brothers.
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I don't think it's too helpful to take the genre divisions that we see today back into the past - styles that we see as divergent today were often much closer in terms of both the way they were played and the people who played them.
 
#23
onosson said:
I don't think it's too helpful to take the genre divisions that we see today back into the past - styles that we see as divergent today were often much closer in terms of both the way they were played and the people who played them.
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Well, it can go either way. In some cases people could be even more vociferous about differentiations in style "back then" than they might be today. But you have a point. There was a strong social component to the growth of funk in the 60s and 70s and it would make sense for the Motown session guys to identify with "funk" even if they weren't adopting some of the style's more obvious characteristics.
 
#24
bass12 said:
Well, it can go either way. In some cases people could be even more vociferous about differentiations in style "back then" than they might be today. But you have a point. There was a strong social component to the growth of funk in the 60s and 70s and it would make sense for the Motown session guys to identify with "funk" even if they weren't adopting some of the style's more obvious characteristics.
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Sure that makes sense. No style or genre emerges from a vacuum, and I think Motown and Funk could be seen as very close branches of the same part of the tree of N American music.
 
#28
MysticMichael said:
For the record, Grand Funk Railroad was "funk" in name only. They played rock. Just rock.
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they were named after the grand trunk railroad in burton, mi. i grew up in that area. they played funky rock. ive seen mark farner live, although they may classified as rock they couldnt further away from the traditional rock and roll. IMHO
 
#31
I've just got to reiterate - listen to Lettuce. Please, please, please, listen to Lettuce. Adam Deitch is an unbelievable drummer and Neal Evans plays some of the nastiest bass lines around on his organ.

And for somebody who plays the electric, you need you NEED YOU NEED to listen to Chris Loftlin. I've only seen his name dropped on TB a couple of times, which is criminal. Listen to this live show from last month (which also features one of the baddest guitarists around):

archive.org/details/btg2012-03-11.akg481-sbd.flac16
 
#32
bass12 said:
I have to admit that I found it a bit weird - and inappropriate - that that the Motown session team are referred to as The Funk Brothers. I also wonder, did they actually refer to themselves as The Funk Brothers back in the day or was that a hip sounding moniker added after the fact?
Click to expand...

bass12 said:
Well, it can go either way. In some cases people could be even more vociferous about differentiations in style "back then" than they might be today. But you have a point. There was a strong social component to the growth of funk in the 60s and 70s and it would make sense for the Motown session guys to identify with "funk" even if they weren't adopting some of the style's more obvious characteristics.
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I would theorize that the moniker Funk Brothers came from their roots as local jazz cats. From the funk wiki page:
The word funk basically refers to a strong, generally offensive odor. The anthropologist/art historian Robert Farris Thompson, in his work Flash Of The Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy, postulates that funky has its semantic roots in the Kikongo word "lu-fuki", which means "bad body odor". He says: "Both jazzmen and Bakongo use funky and lu-fuki to praise persons for the integrity of their art, for having 'worked out' to achieve their aims ... This Kongo sign of exertion is identified with the irradiation of positive energy of a person. Hence 'funk' in American jazz parlance can mean earthiness, a return to fundamentals."[3] African-American jazz musicians originally applied the term to music with a slow, mellow groove, then later with a hard-driving, insistent rhythm, as it implies a bodily or carnal quality. This early form of the music set the pattern for later musician
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#33
A quick search online got me this history of the word:

funk (1)
"depression, ill-humor," 1743, probably originally Scottish and northern English; earlier as a verb, "panic, fail through panic," (1737), said to be 17c. Oxford University slang, perhaps from Flem. fonck "perturbation, agitation, distress," possibly related to O.Fr. funicle "wild, mad."

funk (2)
"bad smell," 1620s, from dialectal Fr. funkière "smoke," from O.Fr. fungier "give off smoke; fill with smoke," from L. fumigare "to smoke" (see fume). In reference to a style of music, it is first attested 1959, a back formation from funky.
 
#34
Funk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FUNK: Centered on the creation of a strong rhythmic momentum or groove, with the electric bass and bass drum often playing on all four main beats of the measure, the snare drum and other instruments playing equally strongly on the second and fourth beats (the backbeats), and interlocking ostinato patterns distributed among other instruments, including guitar, keyboards, and horns. Funk brought the focus on dancing back into the pop mainstream.
 
#35
 

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