Funk was derived from Soul and R&B in the late 1960s by artists like James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic among many others. Coming out of the soul genre, funk came out from the God Father of soul and the father of the funk, the insurmountable James Brown.

After a short incubation in the late sixties and spawning out of psychedelic soul, funk, as its own genre took hold of modern music. Little by little from 1967 from James Brown, Hendrix, and the Temptations pushed a funkiness that seemed to melt into modern pop music of the day, as the pop music of the day slowly changed from a swing beat to a backbeat rhythm in music.

Funk in the early 1970s progressed so quickly as to totally influence mainstream popular music. From the lightest country or pop music to the hardest metal of the day, coming from Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, the bass guitar would show signs of diddlin’, snappin’, riffin’ and general funkification.

This new bass playing techniques would permeate throughout all the other genres of the early seventies. Everything from light (Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, Barbara Streisand), country (James Taylor, Carol King, Neil Young), progressive (Floyd, Yes, ELP), hard (Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, early Chicago Transit Authority) and even the aforementioned Black Sabbath had a funkiness in the bass.

Funk as mainstream music peaked in the early to mid-1970s. As popular mainstream charting music, funk went on to change music forever. With its emphasis on the rhythm section, James Brown made the entire band transform into a huge trap-set or drum-set, complete with bebop jazz chords, minor thirds, extended and exotic sevenths, ninths and elevenths, that seemed to be the cherry to the ice cream soda.

Along with most of rock music, modern pop music would never be the same as it previously was during the swing era. After the violent turbulence of the late sixties, there are several distinct lines of demarcation inherent in music of that time. The changes in music with respect to politics, philosophy, and creativity, all the way to the changes in technology development like fidelity and stereo.

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?