The FUNK: As I Know it!
FUNK: Different people may give you
different interpretations of the history of the funk. This is how I experienced
it. Soul music was  always funky and it has always made you dance. The James Brown
camp were always doing their own thing and created their model of the funk. The
same could be said of Soul music and performances. The Chambers Brothers and the Jimi Hendrix
Experience were entertaining hard rock audiences. In the middle of
black and white audiences during the late 1960’s was Sly & the Family Stone. It
was the death of Jimi Hendrix that brought on a discovery of his sound with
black audiences inviting several groups to incorporate his sound into their
style. This can be said of Funkadelic, The Buddy Miles Express, The Isley
Brothers and the Bar-kays. All of this came together and it was called Black Rock. By the early 1970’s this
new style with heavy lead guitars and thumping bass lines was now referred to
as the Funk! Some of the cast of characters out of the history of the Funk were
The JB's, Mandrill, Earth Wind & Fire, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Rufus
featuring Chaka Khan, Prince, The Five Stairsteps, The Jackson Five, Betty
Davis, Issac Hayes, The New Birth, The Nite-liters, The Tower of Power,
Osibisia, Rare Earth, Graham Central Station, The Meters, Labelle, The
Temptations, Cymande, MFSB, The O'Jays, Maxayn, Bloodstone, Ike & Tina
Turner, Johnny Guitar Watson, Isaac Hayes, The Counts, Mother’s Finest, Curtis
Mayfield, The Brides of Funkenstein, Slave, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, The Brothers
Johnson, Billy Preston plus much more. You can hear all of these wonderful
examples of The Funk each and every week on The Funk
Show!
My Interview
history
Conducting
interviews was the farthest thing on my mind when I first started this show.
One of the first things that I noticed whenever I spoke to an artist was
"Can we do an interview?" At first I backed off but I continued to
hear this over and over again. I soon discovered that many of these artists
have a story to tell and they want the public to hear it. Once I began the
interview process it never stopped and literally this began by accident.
Through these interviews I have heard powerful testimonies, heart breaking
stories, heart felt stories, successes, failures, pride, and have made long
lasting friendships. When I first sat down with Mr.
Bobby Byrd he told me the story of how James Brown was discovered. He began by saying
“I am writing a book. I don't do
interviews, but I'm gonna tell it to you". Reverend Freddie Stewart of Sly & the Family Stone told me the
story of how he came to Christ. Lester
Chambers told the story of how he and Miles Davis liked to cook together. I
had the late Richard Kush Griffith
on my show three times. He was a veteran of the James Brown Orchestra, Bootsy’s
Rubber Band, Bottom & Company and P-Funk. We became friends and would talk
once or twice a week about the history of the music. If he hadn’t heard from me
he would leave me a voice mail message and would say "Dog this is Kush. I haven’t heard from you and I just want to
make sure that you are all right". Buddy Miles was on my show twice and the second interview was one
of the last before he died. I wanted to speak to him about Jimi Hendrix, which
he did. I discovered that he seemed to be more proud of the years when he was
the front man for the group The Electric Flag and he also told me that he at
one time played drums for The Monkees. I had Robert "Kool" Bell from Kool & the Gang on my show
and he talked about their early beginnings in Jazz. Their original name was the
"Jazziacs". When Jimmy Castor
and I did the interview I wanted to talk about The Jimmy Castor Bunch and being
a black artist at RCA records. We did talk about that but, I discovered that
Jimmy was still very proud of Frankie Lymon. He talked a lot about how Frankie
Lymon & the Teenagers were one day just school kids in sneakers and the
next day in suits and on TV. A very similar thing happened when I talked with Jean Terrell the day after Christmas.
My goal was to talk about Motown and how she came to replace Diana Ross in the
Supremes. She talked about that; but the discovery was that she talked a lot
about her family especially her brother Ernie Terrell. He was a boxer who
fought Muhammad Ali in 1967. She was still very proud of him. Teena Marie let me know that she was at
Motown before Rick James. Her band which was a family act with her brothers and
sisters were hired by Motown to record tracks for a film that Motown was
producing. Chuck Barksdale of the
mighty mighty Dells informed me that the Dells have been together for 58 years.
That is incredible. As original members they have outlived groups like the
Temptations, The Four Tops and the Miracles. I also discovered that Minnie
Ripperton recorded with the Dells on Chess Records as a background vocalist.
You never know what you will get out of an interview while trying to document
the funk.
Here is a
list of some of the artists that I have had the pleasure to speak with about
their musical history on the FUNK SHOW:
Bernie
Worrell, Bobby Byrd, Vickie Anderson, Richard "Kush" Griffith (James
Brown & P-Funk), Buddy Hank (Slave & Aurra), Corey Parker (son of Maceo
Parker), Dawn Silva(The Brides of Funkenstein), Jimmy Castor, Ray Davis
(Parliament - Funkadelic), Chuck Brown (The Soul Searchers), Dean Francis
(SUN), Frankie "Kash" Waddy (Parliament - Funkadelic), Freda Payne,
Jack Ashford (The Funk Brothers), Mark Green (The Moments), Lou & Ricardo
“Doc” Wilson (of Mandrill), Vet Stone (Little Sister), Charles Wright of the
103rd St. Rhythm Band, Bill Curtis (The Fatback Band), Leslie & Melvin
Wilson (The New Birth), Gerald Alston (The Manhattans), Buddy Miles, Marlo
Henderson (Maxayn), Andre Lewis (Maxayn & Mandre), Maxayn Lewis, Damon
Harris (The Temptations), Jean Terrell (The Supremes), Charles Hawkins (Black
Merda), Fugi, Reverend Freddie Stone (Sly & the Family Stone), Waldo
Weathers, Joe Davis (The James Brown Orchestra), Shirley Jones (The Jones
Girls), Blowfly, Don Byron, Joe Bataan, Willie Feaster (Willie and the Mighty
Magnificents), Fred Cash (The Impressions), MC Dannie Ray (The James Brown
Show), George Duke, Dennis Coffey, Helen Scott (The Three Degrees), Kenny
Gamble, Bertum Brown (The Newcomers & Kwick), Zigaboo Modeliste (The
Meters), Wendell Sudduth (The Eight Minutes), Gregory Johnson (Cameo), Lester
Chambers (The Chambers Brothers), Randolph Murph (The Brighter Side of
Darkness), Leo Norcentelli (The Meters), Al Johnson (The Unifics), The Homemade
Jamz Blues Band, Gil Bridges (Rare Earth), Derrick Davis & Jeno Thomas (The
Original P), Joyce Kennedy & Glenn Murdock (Mothers Finest), Bunny Debarge,
Henry Ford & the Gifts, Howard Scott & Harold Brown (The Low Rider Band
& WAR), Chris Jasper (The Isley Brothers), Emilio Castillo (The Tower of
Power), Ben E. King, Kevin Murphy & Tony Maiden (Rufus), Bobby Watson
(Rufus), Ron Banks (The Dramatics), William King (The Commodores), Teena Marie,
Chuck Barksdale (The Dells), Jerry Martini (Sly & the Family Stone), Thomas
J. Norwood (Ike & Tina Turner), Mose Davis (The Counts), Bettye Lavette,
Steve Arrington, Curtis Pope (The Midnight Movers), Gloria Jones, Sarah Dash
(Labelle), Billy Cox, King Raymond Green (Black Heat), Billy Osborne (LTD),
Roame Lowry (Maze featuring Frankie Beverly), Ernie Isley, Brenda Lee Egar, The
Five Stairsteps & Cubie, (Clarence Burke, Jr, Betty Burke, Clarence Burke
Sr., Cubie Burke, Dennis Burke and Ramijimar Habeebullah (Alohe Burke)), Dottie
Moore-Thomas (Chee Chee & Peppy), Josh White, Jr, Judy White-Goard and
Kelli Goard-Ellis, Renn Woods, Sugar Pie de Santo, Angela Bofill, Norman
Conners, Syl Johnson, Barbara Roy, Leon Huff, Clifford Curry (The Notations),
Gus Redman (Bruswick Records), Reginald "Prophet" Haynes (The
Escorts), Marshall Thompson (The
Chi-lites), Bo Digitally Scott Free, Lloyd Price, Maxwell Pickett (brother of
Wilson Pickett), Ben Cauley (The Bar-kays), Newton Collier, Eddie Ray (NC Music
Hall of Fame), Richard Spencer (The Winstons), Fred Wesley, Swamp Dogg, Lalah
Hathaway, Otis Clay, Debbie McPhatter, Timmy Thomas, Jean Carne, Patryce
"Choc'let" Banks, Jerome Bigfoot Brailey, Greg Errico, La La Brooks,
Ken Knox, Lonnie Youngblood, Chuck Jackson, author Charles Stephenson, Jr.,
Timothy “Teebone” David (Trouble Funk), Harry Wayne Casey (KC & The Sunshine
Band), Rick Stevens (Tower of Power), Warren "Pete" Moore (Smokey
Robinson & the Miracles), Thomas Bucknasty (Thomas McNeil and Michael Ray), Sam "The Man" Lathan, Jim Gilstrap, Lloyd Smith (The Bar-kays), Harry Coombs, William Hart (The Delfonics), Tom "Tom Tom 84" Washington, J. Plunky Branch (Plunky & Oneness), J.C. Davis, Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul and Sidney Barnes.
We are documenting the history of the Funk!
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