“I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat … Simple as that, really”

                                                                                                                                                – James Brown

What is Funk?

Funk – 1967-1978

Funk was derived from Soul and R&B in the late 1960s by James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. Funk progressed as mainstream popular music and peaked in the early to mid-1970s where it changed music forever with its emphasis on the bass guitar and the rhythm section. The new bass playing techniques would permeate throughout all the other genres of the 1970s (Light Rock, Country Rock, Prog Rock, Hard Rock and even early Heavy Metal like Black Sabbath). Like Rock music, modern pop music would never be the same and shows a distinct line of demarcation in technology and fidelity in the new sounds. Furthermore, Funk would spawn the future genres of both Disco and Hip Hop music. What would all these genres sound like without Funk’s enormous influence?

The Rhythm and the concept of “The One”

The concept of the One is the heavy emphasis on the first downbeat of every one or two measures, bars or counts. A Measure or a bar in funk music is accented by the bass drum counting “ONE-two-three-four”, with the emphasis on the one. Previously in Soul music, the emphasis was the backbeat snare drum count on the “two” and the “four” of “one-TWO-three-FOUR“. The beat driven by the bass drum emphasis on the one combined with the syncopating boom of the bass guitar is the root of the funk band.

The rest of the band acts as rhythmic instruments, such as, and most importantly percussion instruments like a set of Congas, bongos, and timbales as well as anything you can shake (Tambourines, Maracas), hit (Claves, Agogo, and Cowbells), scrape (Guicas), etc. The rhythm section was the whole point of the funky new propulsive style of dance music. Bo Diddley would always have a percussion player (Claves, Maracas, etc) syncopating rhythms with the Latin music “concept of clave”

The guitars gave heavily syncopated patterns using new electronic gadgets like the wah-wah pedal that came from guitarists like Jimi Hendrix over a drums/bass groove. The horns provided the bebop jazz chords but at rhythmic “Stabs” punctuating the funk groove, with synchronized accents.

The funk band grooves or vamps, which means picking a funky groove or riff in one key and sticking with it, with no chord changes. This can also be referred to as a jam that can go on longer than the average 3-minute pop song.

James Brown

Funk music comes out of Soul music and Psychedelic Soul with elements of R&B, Jazz, Bebop, and gospel. It started in the mid-1960s with James Brown (The Godfather of Funk) who was also responsible for the rise of Soul music in the early 1960s. James Brown is truly one of the most remarkable artists of the late 20th century coming out of the Gospel, R&B and Doo Wop genres in the mid to late 1950s with his first #5 R&B hit “Please, Please, Please” and then his R&B #1 hit (#48 mainstream hit) “Try Me” on November 10, 1958.

The Future of the Funk

He went on to have many classic soul hits in the early 1960s (please see Soul Music) and then went on to almost single-handedly invent Funk Music. Up until the R&B #1 song “Cold Sweat” (#7 on the US mainstream charts) the emphasis of the beat had been on the upbeats of the “two” and the “four” count of a measure or bar. “Cold Sweat” emphasized the “one” of each measure or bar, thereby changing the pulse of the rhythm. The tempos could be fast but were generally slower than Soul.

There were many influential songs by James Brown before “Cold Sweat” that had elements and hints of Funk music like the #24 hit “Out Of Sight“, the R&B #1 (US #8) “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and the mega-hit R&B #1, mainstream #3 hit “I Got You (I Feel Good)“. However, these were more uptempo songs and didn’t convey the emphasis of the One as true Funk, quite like “Cold Sweat” did. From that song on Brown would churn out Funk classic songs with occasional Soul songs up through the late 60’s into the early and mid-1970s until Disco took over the mainstream.

Funk Blog #3

Other Funk Pioneers

Other Soul artists started to try out Funk music like Joe Tex, Johnny Taylor, Dyke & the Blazers. Soul giants Otis Redding, Wilson Picket and also Aretha Franklin had incorporated funk styles into their songs in the late 1960s. Then Sly & the Family Stone and George Clinton’s Funkadelic took funk music to amazing and popular heights in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sly Stone would make Funk music mainstream as Funkadelic would also propel Funk music and mix it with Rock music.

Funk Triumvirate

Generally, the Funk Triumvirate is first James Brown (the God Father), then Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic as the three groups that made Funk music become the mainstream music of the early 1970s. With the exception of Sly, Brown and Clinton never really achieved the mainstream number one status they deserved yet they have had enormous influence on other Funk acts that went on to shape the 1970s.

Popular music was forever changed by Funk music in the 1970s as a pure rhythmic form of music that didn’t adhere to the usual structures of pop rock and soul music. You can hear it, not only in the drums and percussion but very much so in the role of the Bass Guitar. The Bass propelled by Larry Graham of Sly & the Family Stone would be influential on the music of the seventies, be it all the Rock genres (Funk Rock, Hard Rock, Light Rock & Country Rock), Soul Music, R&B, but also Broadway musicals and light popular. The Funk rhythms would forever eclipse the old swing styles of music so prevalent in the early 20th century in pop music.

The term “Funk” 

What Is “Funk”? Funky as in a strong odor, as smoke, fumar in Spanish or Fungiere in French; Funky as in musty, earthy, something deeply or strongly felt, get down, get funky, “Put some stank on it!” Like the choicest, greenest, sticky bud that everyone on the bus can whiff and the smell never gets out of your clothes. Like the dance floor, or a small rundown rock, blues or bebop club where the air lingers after a whole bunch of humans have been smoking, drinking and sweating it out.

The New Style

The rhythm sections new style “on the one”, the bass players new role as the lead instrument with the new sound fidelity and low frequencies, the rhythm guitars utilizing the vamp, the new rhythm brass section complete with stabs  and ornamentation, the quintessential funky drum solo and what I call the Diddley effects of syncopated rhythms.