Martin's funk thread

Funnily enough...these are some of my faves.

I got it from VH1 and i've never seen it on since.

What do you think of the official live album on Wesbound from 71?

No offense, but were you expecting something like the O'Jays? Or did you think that all funk is just jazz with a backbeat? Just wondering if you're getting what you're looking for.

Don't get me wrong, still enjoying these reviews...

Also, the trouble with gospel is indeed that the songs are about God. What is wrong with that standpoint?

martin plz continue to "give up the funk" or perhaps that should read don't give up the funk.

Wasn't meant to be a slam, either. I DID say I liked the reviews, and I come in peace so you can put that damn shotgun away!!! :-) But like J.B. Hutto once sang: "I'm gonna speak my mind this morning..." Funk on, Martin.

I have zero funkitude. I have no pride about liking funk music any more than I do about liking soul or rock or country or hip hop.

hxxp://s52.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3CMBGS8PEQMR52QC36FCDQJD8A

All who download it please say what you think of it.

Just replaced the x with t. It's so the links can't be traced back to here.

The Bloodstone album I haven't actually heard yet. I saw it in someones shares and grabbed it.

Does anyone have the 1st self-titled album? It's not out on cd and 4 of the tracks are bonus tracks on the 2nd album which was released on cd.

Anyway, he of course had a magnificent band (though I think they got even better over the next couple of years), and It's A Man's Man's Man's World was always one of the stellar moments of any JB set, and it's fantastic here, and very long, and there's a great sequence where the funk really gets going on CD2, with some fabulous guitar playing. At times the album doesn't know what it wants to be, but at times it catches the best of one world or another, and it's about as good as music ever gets.

Did anyone else download that Funk, Inc track?

I've got a copy of the movie. I think I posted about it a while back somewhere on here. It's a dream sequence thing in which one of the guys in Bloodstone takes a spill and imagines that they're porters on a Hollywood-bound train filled with people who impersonate film stars like Bogie, Eddy and McDonald, W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, et al. it is also a murder mystery. sorta the really stupid companion to glamour-obsessed proto-disco records like the Miracles' "City of Angels" and "Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band." except it's really stupid. but of course, I love it, especially the "rock and roll" number which is sort of like something Roy Wood might've thrown in his wastebasket except that it's performed by a black harmony group on a train. I gave my DVD copy to a friend who needed it even more than I do--the whole thing is a what-the-fuck; the trailer is better than the movie; when I show it to friends, a certain...silence descendds upon the room, a respectful silence. and did I mention that it's really, really stupid?

great thread. funk didn't really begin with James Brown, tho--you got to go back further to drummers like Hungry Williams and Earl Palmer, New Orleans guys, to get at the roots of it. James Brown codified it, maybe, but if it ain't tightened up in the rhythm section, if you don't feel an alienated jerk, it ain't funk music. in my opinion a fan of perhaps the dumbest movie ever, of course. anyway, Martin, you are the man!!

"The root of funk was created in the studios. Earl Palmer, the drummer, was really responsible for that word 'funk.' He would say all the time, like if them guys like Lee Allen were playing at the recording sessions, he would say, 'Look, man, let's play a little funkier,' and the word would start going around....Then it emanated right on out until everyday people just say it. It implies a concentrated rhythm and stiffness and more concentration. Sometimes Charles Williams, 'Hungry,' they called him, a drummer that intensified everything....he would tighten everything up and this would be funky because everything would get stiff, man." As a description that, in my opinion, can hardly be improved upon. It really comes down to the rhythmic conception, the drumming, the "tightened-upness" of it all. And so I think it was happening before James Brown did it; I look at it not as some genre of music but as a more general *way of thinking about music*. It's like "Northern Soul": I mean to me, an American, that's a meaningless term, I know what people mean when they say it and I love the songs folks lump into "Northern Soul," but I think it's just some records British people like Ian Levine decided he was gonna make popular, that mostly weren't popular in the United States (at least until they started cutting records specifically for that market, which is a different thing). Hats off to him for finding those records in Miami, but that term just describes a regional *taste*, that's all. What musicians do is a lot different from what people make out of it. So, I kinda think people tend to put the cart before the horse when they think about all this--I like to keep it basic. None of which is to deny James Brown or Sly or Clinton props, but to say that those ideas were in the air long before someone decided to lock them down and name them. And they come from
New Orleans, if you ask me.

he used the word FONK a lot. kinda annoying.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312134991/qid=1139300488/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-3182528-1209630?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

(Actually I'm listening to Mingus at the moment - my work CD drive has been repaired, which might up the review rate. I will have very positive things to say about Mutiny and the Ohio Players tonight.)