Funk

Funk is an American musical style that originated in the mid- to late-1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony, and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Unlike R&B and soul songs, which had many chord changes, funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord.

Like much of African inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands also usually have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and in some cases, a trombone, which plays rhythmic "hits".

James Brown and funk as a genre

By mid-1960s, James Brown had developed his signature groove that emphasized the downbeat – with heavy emphasis "on the one" (the first beat of every measure) – to etch his distinctive sound, rather than the backbeat that was familiar to many R&B and soul musicians. Brown often cued his band with the command "On the one!," changing the percussion emphasis/accent from the one-two-three-four backbeat of traditional soul music to the one-two-three-four downbeat – but with an even-note syncopated guitar rhythm (on quarter notes two and four) featuring a hard-driving, repetitive brassy swing. This one-three beat launched the shift in Brown's signature funk music style, starting with his 1964 hit single, "Out of Sight" and his 1965 hit, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."

Brown's innovations pushed the funk music style further to the forefront with releases such as "Cold Sweat" (1967), "Mother Popcorn" (1969) and "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" (1970), discarding even the twelve bar blues featured in his earlier music. Instead, Brown's music was overlaid with "catchy, anthemic vocals" based on "extensive vamps" in which he also used his voice as "a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts and with rhythm-section patterns ... [resembling] West African polyrhythms." Throughout his career, Brown's frenzied vocals, frequently punctuated with screams and grunts, channeled the "ecstatic ambiance of the black church" in a secular context. Although "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "Cold Sweat" were widely credited as the prototype songs that launched the funk genre, "Out of Sight" was the breakthrough hit that signaled the shift in Brown's sound to establish funk as a distinct genre.

In a 1990 interview, Brown offered his reason for switching the rhythm of his music: "I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat ... Simple as that, really." According to Maceo Parker, Brown's former saxophonist, playing on the downbeat was at first hard for him and took some getting used to. Reflecting back to his early days with Brown's band, Parker reported that he had difficulty playing "on the one" during solo performances, since he was used to hearing and playing with the accent on the second beat.

George Clinton -Parliament and Funkadelic

Under the guiding hand of mastermind George Clinton, the affiliated groups Parliament and Funkadelic established funk as an heir to and outgrowth of soul. If James Brown is funk’s founding father, Clinton has been its chief architect and tactician. Over the decades, he’s presided over a musical empire that’s included Parliament and Funkadelic, plus numerous offshoots (such as the Brides of Funkenstein and Parlet), solo careers (Clinton’s and bassist Bootsy Collins’ being the notable) and aggregates (the P-Funk All-Stars). The pioneering work of Parliament and Funkadelic in the Seventies—driven by Clinton’s conceptually inventive mind and the band members’ tight ensemble playing and stretched-out jamming—prefigured everything from rap and hip-hop to techno and alternative. Clinton’s latter-day disciples include Prince and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Between them, Parliament and Funkadelic virtually defined the melting pot known as funk: a melding of rhythm & blues, jazz, gospel and psychedelic rock. With them, Clinton has purveyed larger-than-life characters and concepts from the stage, culminating in such theatrical milestones as the Mothership, a mock flying saucer from which the black space “aliens” of Clinton’s musical entourage alighted onstage. Though his musical productions have been typified by danceable grooves and driven by a laser-sharp sociological wit, Clinton’s ultimate goal is serious: “I am intent on making the word funk as legitimate as jazz and rock and roll.”

George Clinton spent his teenage years in Plainfield, New Jersey, where he founded a vocal group called the Parliaments. They recorded as far back as 1956 but didn’t impact the charts until 1967, when “(I Wanna) Testify"—a prescient mix of Sixties soul, rock and pop—went #3 R&B and #20 pop. That year, Clinton began listening to the new wave of psychedelic rock by bands such as Cream, Vanilla Fudge and Sly and the Family Stone. The dual influence of cutting-edge soul and rock served as inspirations to Funkadelic. In 1970, Clinton dropped the “s” from his other band, and Parliament was born.

Each group had a distinct identity and alternated releases into the late Seventies on a variety of labels—Invictus, Westbound, Warner Bros.—with Clinton dividing his time between them. Parliament was essentially a horn-based soul group and Funkadelic a guitar-based rock group, but both were built on a foundation of funk. Parliament and Funkadelic were flip sides of the same coin, and these overlapping entities’ respective outputs were referred to in stylistic shorthand as “P-Funk.” In Parliament’s self-referential theme song, “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),” Clinton and entourage referred to themselves as “dealers of funky music, P-Funk, uncut funk, The Bomb.”

Parliament and Funkadelic frequently resorted to allegorical concept albums to make larger points about societal injustices and ways in which a community of like-minded souls could liberate themselves from its constrictions. Clinton animated the moral conflict between opposing forces of good (the trippy funkateer “Starchild") and evil (the uptight, uptight “Sir Nose D’Void of Funk") over the course of a five-year run of Parliament albums, from Mothership Connection (1976) to Trombipulation (1981). Meanwhile, Funkadelic gelled on one of the finest funk albums ever produced, One Nation Under a Groove, whose title track was a rousing anthem of union and community.

Parliament and Funkadelic dominated and revolutionized the music scene in the latter half of the Seventies—particularly in 1978 and 1979, when they racked up four #1 R&B hits: “Flash Light,” “One Nation Under a Groove,” Aqua Boogie” and “(Not Just) Knee Deep.” Clinton’s main collaborators during Parliament-Funkadelic’s heyday included keyboardists Bernie Worrell and Walter “Junie” Morrison and bassist William “Bootsy” Collins. Known for his star-shaped sunglasses, glittery “space bass” and cartoonish demeanor, Collins became a funk icon and solo star in his own right. Melding soul, funk, jazz and psychedelia, a succession of P-Funk guitarists—including the late Eddie Hazel, Mike Hampton and DeWayne “Blackbyrd” McKnight—have carried forward the legacy of Jimi Hendrix with their adventurous, exploratory soloing.

Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove 1978

During the 1970s, Parliament, Funkadelic and a host of related offshoots placed roughly 60 singles on the R&B charts and were among the hottest attractions on the concert circuit. They were responsible for some of the most theatrical tours ever undertaken, deploying one of the largest props—the otherworldly “Mothership"—ever dragged from city to city. Financial, legal and personal problems grounded the Mothership in 1980, but Clinton resurfaced stronger than ever as a solo artist on Capitol Records.. “Atomic Dog,” the popular dance-funk centerpiece of 1982’s Computer Games—one of Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Albums of the 80’s—topped the R&B chart for four weeks. In 1983, Clinton also released an album credited to “the P-Funk All-Stars,” which drew on the talents of various members of Parliament and Funkadelic (including Bootsy Collins), plus guests like Sly Stone and Bobby Womack.

A new generation of hip young listeners discovered P-Funk via rap and hip-hop records that heavily sampled Clinton’s vast body of work. By the Nineties, Clinton was widely recognized as a black-music patriarch and pioneer whose contributions put him in a league with James Brown. In fact, Clinton is second only to Brown as the most heavily sampled artist. Meanwhile, the Parliament-Funkadelic juggernaut has shown no signs of slowing down, remaining active on the recording and touring fronts as George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. One of their later albums—The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership (T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.), released in 1996—returned the funk collective to the concept that helped establish them as visionaries 20 years earlier.

Parliament Funkadelic was notorious for its sheer quantity of musicians: countless members have joined, left and re-joined the collective over its decades of performing and recording, and live shows often boasted up to 30 musicians on stage at once. While P-Funk would have never existed without the work of all the musicians and artists in the historic “P-Funk mob,” the following are often viewed as the band’s most iconic and influential.

George Clinton Born in North Carolina in 1941, Clinton began singing doo-wop in New Jersey in the 1950s, when he formed the Parliaments, the predecessors to Parliament Funkadelic. Clinton remains the figurehead of P-Funk, and is widely known for his extravagant costumes and hairstyles as well as his creative influence on countless musicians. As a singer and lyricist, he broke musical boundaries with his political outspokenness, vocal protests and artistic flamboyance. Despite persisting legal and financial difficulties, Clinton has had a successful recording career following the dissolution of P-Funk in the early 1980s, with albums such as Atomic Dog; The Cinderella Theory; Hey Man, Smell My Finger and T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M., as well as touring as a solo artist and with the P-Funk All Stars, which released How Late Do You Have 2 B B 4 U R Absent? in fall 2005.

Bootsy Collins Born William Collins in 1951 in Cincinnati, Bootsy Collins first started playing bass in the late 1960s with his band The Pacesetters, which also featured his brother, Catfish Collins, on guitar. The group was James Brown’s back-up band in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Collins joined P-Funk in 1972 and continued to record with the band for years as well as on solo and side projects such as Bootsy’s Rubber Band. One of the most legendary bass players in music history, Collins’s career has boasted singles such as “The Pinocchio Theory” and “Bootzilla,” best-selling albums including Ahh… The Name is Bootsy Baby! and Bootsy? Player of the Year, as well as performances with the Bootzilla Orchestra and with bands such as Deee-Lite.

Eddie Hazel Legendary guitarist Hazel was famous for his unconventional playing stylings, as exemplified in such P-Funk classics as “Maggot Brain,” and his pioneering of such musical fusions as mixing funk, metal, soul, psychedelia and R&B. Born in Brooklyn in 1950, Hazel grew up in New Jersey and first played for the Parliaments’ back-up band as a teenager in the late 1960s, in a group that would later become Funkadelic. Hazel’s trademark riffs contributed musically to a number of P-Funk albums, but by the mid-1970s, his problems with drug abuse had began to affect his work, and he was forced to leave the band for a few years, returning in the late 1970s. Hazel continued to play with George Clinton and as a solo artist until his death in 1992 from internal bleeding and liver failure.

Garry Shider Known for his soulful voice, Shider was born in Plainfield, NJ and grew up singing with gospel legends. After a short time living in Canada, Shider returned to the U.S. to join P-Funk. He sang lead on many of the band’s most well-known songs, including “Cosmic Slop,” “One Nation,” and “Getting to Know You,” and also co-authored hits such as “Atomic Dog.” As a solo artist in the post-Funkadelic years, Shider has received accolades for his songwriting and producing work, including several Grammy nominations and Dove Gospel awards.

Bernie Worrell Raised in Plainfield, NJ, the classically trained Worrell began playing the piano before the age of three, and was a child prodigy pianist, playing with symphonies and even penning his own concerto at age eight. He expanded his repertoire in college, playing with non-classical bands and eventually joining Funkadelic in 1970, after the release of the band’s first album. A central P-Funk figure, Worrell helped define the collective’s sound by providing most of the musical arrangements and producing most of the later albums. After P-Funk disbanded in the early 1980s, Worrell played and toured with the Talking Heads and fellow P-Funk alumnus Bootsy Collins, and has had a successful solo career.

TIMELINE
March 29, 1940: Raymond Davis was born.

July 22, 1940: George Clinton, the visionary leader of the Parliament-Funkadelic empire, is born in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

January 5, 1941: Gene Grady Thomas was born.

June 8, 1941: Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins was born.

May 22, 1942: Calvin “Thang” Simon was born.

April 19, 1944: Bernie Worrel was born.

May 23, 1944: Tiki Fulwood was born.

April 10, 1950: Eddie Hazel was born.

August 20, 1950: Jerome Brailey was born.

January 28, 1951: William “Billy Bass” Nelson Jr. is born.

October 26, 1951: Bootsy Collins was born.

October 16, 1952: Cordell “Boogie” Mosson Jr. is born.

July 24, 1953: Gary Shider was born.

1955: George Clinton forms the Parliaments with fellow classmates at Clinton Place Junior High School in Plainfield, New Jersey.

September 2, 1967: “(I Wanna) Testify,” by the Parliaments, enters the R&B singles chart. It is a massive R&B hit (#3) that also rises to #20 on the pop Top Forty. Seven years later it is recut by Parliament (with the s lopped off) as “Testify.”

1967: “(I Wanna) Testify” by the Parliaments reaches #20.

1969: The untitled first album by Funkadelic, including the defining track “Mommy, What’s a Funkadelic...?,” is released.

1970: ‘Osmium’, the first album by Parliament, is released.

1971: ‘Maggot Brain’, the third Funkadelic album, is highlighted by the title track, a landmark ten-minute guitar solo from Eddie Hazel.

1972: Funkadelic’s most overtly political album (and only double LP), ‘America Eats Its Young’, is released.

1974: ‘Up for the Downstroke’ revives the Parliament name. With overlapping personnel, Parliament and Funkadelic operate on different but parallel tracks through the end of the decade.

1975: Parliament releases the breakthrough album Mothership Connection, whose audacious concept loosely hinges on the notion that Planet Earth was originally settled by a tribe of black outer-space aliens who would one day return to liberate their descendants.

December 27, 1977: ‘Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome’, another concept album building on the story line first articulated on ‘Mothership Connection’, enters the charts. It reaches #13, tying ‘Mothership Connection’ as the highest-charting Parliament album.

1978: Funkadelic hits #28 with “One Nation Under a Groove”.

January 28, 1978: Parliament’s “Flash Light,” driven by a synthesized bass line, enters the R&B chart, which it will top for three weeks. It is a Top Twenty single on the pop charts as well.

1978: Parliament hits #16 with “Flashlight”.

October 27, 1978: Funkadelic releases ‘One Nation Under a Groove’. Its anthemic title track tops the R&B charts for six weeks and is the only Funkadelic single ever to reach the pop Top Forty.

1978: Glenn Lamont Goins died.

December 9, 1978: Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie” enters the R&B charts, which it will top for four weeks.

August 25, 1979: Funkadelic’s second biggest hit, “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” enters the R&B charts, which it will top for three weeks.

November 13, 1982: George Clinton’s first solo album, ‘Computer Games’, is released. “Atomic Dog” becomes a huge R&B, club and video hit (though it entirely misses the pop singles chart).

1983: ‘Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas’, by the P.Funk All-Stars—an agglomeration that draws from all corners of the Parliament-Funkadelic empire—appears on the CBS Associated label.

1983: George Clinton releases “Atomic Dog”.

1986: George Clinton releases “Do Fries Go With That Shake”.

1989: ‘The Cinderella Theory’, George Clinton’s fifth solo album and first for Prince’s Paisley Park label, is released.

1992: Eddie Hazel died.

January 12, 1993: Sly and the Family Stone are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eighth annual induction dinner, held in Los Angeles. George Clinton is the presenter.

May 6, 1997: Parliament-Funkadelic is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the twelfth annual induction dinner. Prince is their presenter.

GEORGE CLINTON - LEAD VOCALS, REFEREE

Garry "Starchild" Shider - Rhythm Guitar, vocals
DeWayne "Blackbyrd"McKnight - Lead Guitar
Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton - Lead Guitar
Cardell "Boogie" Mosson - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Ricardo Rouse - Guitar,
Lige Curry - Bass, Vocals
RonKat Spearman - Bass, Vocals
Frankie "Kash" Waddy - Drums
Joseph "Foley" McCreary - Drums
Rico Lewis - Drums
Jerome Rogers - Keyboards
Michael "Clip" Payne - Keyboards, Vocals
Bennie Cowan - Trumpet
Greg Thomas - Saxophone
Robert "P-Nut" Johnson - Vocals
Belita Woods - Vocals
Steve Boyd - Vocals
Kimberly Manning - Vocals
Kendra Foster - Vocals
Shonda "Sativa Diva" Clinton - Rap
Carlos "Sir Nose"McMurray - Dancer
Shaunna Hall - Guitar
Gene  "Poo Poo Man" Anderson - Vocals
Danny Bedrosian - Keyboards
Tracey Lewis - Rapper & Vocals & Guitar
Paul Hill - Vocals

Discography
1967 The Parliaments I Wanna Testify
1970 Funkadelic Funkadelic
1970 Funkadelic Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow
1970 Parliament Osmium   
1971 Funkadelic Maggot Brain 
1972 Funkadelic America Eats Its Young 
1973 Funkadelic Cosmic Slop 
1974 Funkadelic Standing on the Verge of Getting It On 
1974 Parliament Up for the Down Stroke   
1975 Funkadelic Let's Take It to the Stage 
1975 Parliament Chocolate City   
1976 Funkadelic Hardcore Jollies 
1976 Funkadelic Tales of Kidd Funkadelic 
1976 Parliament Clones of Dr. Funkenstein   
1976 Parliament Mothership Connection   
1977 Parliament Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome   
1977 Parliament Get Down & Boogie
1977 Parliament Live Earth Tour   
1978 Funkadelic One Nation Under a Groove 
1978 Parliament Motor Booty Affair   
1979 Funkadelic Uncle Jam Wants You 
1979 Parliament Gloryhallastoopid   
1980 Parliament Trombipulation   
1981 Funkadelic The Electric Spanking of War Babies
1982 George Clinton Computer Games 
1983 George Clinton You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish 
1984 P-Funk Allstars Urban Dancefloor Guerillas
1985 George Clinton Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends 
1986 George Clinton R&B Skeletons in the Closet 
1989 George Clinton The Cinderella Theory 
1993 Sample Some of Disc, Sample Some of DAT Vol. 1
1993 George Clinton Hey Man, Smell My Finger 
1994 Sample Some of Disc, Sample Some of DAT 2
1995 Sample Some of Disc, Sample Some of DAT Vol. 3
1995 George Clinton & Family Go Fer Yer Funk
1995 George Clinton & Family P is the Funk
1995 George Clinton & Family Plush Funk
1995 George Clinton & Family Testing Positive 4 The Funk
1995 George Clinton & Family A Fifth of Funk
1996 George Clinton The Awesome Power of a Fully Operation Mothership
1996 George Clinton Greatest Funkin Hits
1997 George Clinton & The P-Funk Allstars Live & Kickin'
1998 George Clinton & P-Funk Allstars Dope Dogs
2000 George Clinton The Best of George Clinton
2002 Parliament Funked Up: The Very Best of Parliament
2003 George Clinton Six Degrees of P-Funk
2004 George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic Instant Live: Portland, ME
2004 George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic Instant Live: Atlanta, GA
2005 Parliament Gold

For More Information Visit The Following Sites:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/parliamentfunkadelic

• Music Changes The World

  • RocknRoll

  • HipHopRap

  • Music 60's-70's

  • Motown 

  • MTV

  • JAZZ

  • Live Aid

  • Funk