70's Genre Funk

funk²

• noun a style of popular dance music of US black origin, having a strong rhythm that typically accentuates the first beat in the bar.

Funk is a form of soul music which originated in the mid-1960’s and gained mainstream popularity in the late 1960’s through to the early eighties. Funk featured a strong back beat on the first beat of the bar (“The one”) and unlike soul music, placed more focus on the rhythm of the track rather than the melody, delivered by a strong drum beat and rhythmic bass line, with a brass section delivering a stabs and repeating riffs, all locked together with precision in the rhythm. It’s the genre that made artists such as James Brown, Sly and the family stone, “Bootsy” Collins and George Clinton household names across America. It also became the sound track to volatile political climate in America, where the civil rights movement was occurring where the black African-American population was protesting against racial discrimination, the right to vote, racial dignity and equal wages to white co-workers.

Features of the Music

The main feature of Funk would be the use of rhythm and a strong emphasis on the first beat of the bar, this approach was pioneered by James Brown and can be heard on his 1965 breakthrough hit “Papa’s got a brand new bag”.

Significant Artists

James Brown was certainly a pioneer in his creativity and his influence on music is still present through to this day but soon after his initial breakthrough other funk acts started to emerge, such as Sly and the family Stone.

Sly and the family Stone were a multi racial group (which they say was practically unheard of at the time) that was comprised of multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone and various friends and family members and were pioneering in their own (almost annoyingly) upbeat approach to funk, singing lyrics wishing for peace, love and understanding which I think had great appeal since at the time when there “Dance to the music” album was released in 1968, which was the year Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated and the aftermath of mass rioting coupled with U.S. forces in Vietnam that were fighting for the fifth year running. Such a positive message I imagine would have been a welcome relief.

The Album also was first to feature a premature version of the “Slap and Pop” style of bass playing on the track “Everyday people” provided by Larry Graham which became more pronounced on their later release “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”.

The song writers of Motown also changed their approach to writing songs after funk became apparent, such as with The Temptations, employing a grittier more political attitude towards their lyrics and with a focus on the groove but still retaining a strong use of melody such as can be heard on their hit “Ball of Confusion (That’s what the world is today).”