A term that has been used for various genres of (mainly black) popular music (adj. funky). The word was originally used for smells, and particularly bodily sexual odour; from the 1950s it described hard bop jazz with a soul feeling, as performed by Julian Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, and others. Later in the 1960s it was used more generally for soul and rhythm-and-blues music, epitomized by James Brown and by George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic bands; and from the 1970s on for a variety of black dance and disco music and its white derivatives.
Funk music was originated by African Americans, e.g., James Brown and his band members (especially Maceo and Melvin Parker), and groups like Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, or The Meters.
Funk best can be recognized by its syncopated rhythms;
Characteristics
Compared to funk's predecessor, the soul music of the 1960s, funk typically uses more complex rhythms, while song structures are usually simpler. The soul dance music of its day, the basic idea of funk was to create as intense a groove as possible.
One of the most distinctive features of funk music is the role played by bass guitar. Players like the legendary Motown bassist James Jamerson brought bass to the forefront, and funk built on that foundation, with melodic basslines often being the centerpiece of songs.
Some of the best known and most skillful soloists in funk have jazz backgrounds. Trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonist Maceo Parker are among the most notable musicians in the funk music genre, both having worked with James Brown and George Clinton. Many funk musicians were directly reacting to the increasingly complex structure of Bebop and Modern Jazz. Jazz was, in turn, strongly influenced by funk in the 1970s, beginning with Miles Davis, the founder of the jazz fusion movement, and his former pianist Herbie Hancock.
In funk bands, guitarists typically play in a percussive style. Eddie Hazel, who worked with George Clinton, is one of the most notable guitar soloists in funk. Jimmy Nolen and Phelps Collins are famous funk rhythm guitarists who both worked with James Brown.
History
Origin of funk
Look up funk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.The word "funk", once defined in dictionaries as body odour or the smell of sexual intercourse, commonly has been regarded as coarse or indecent. African-American musicians originally applied "funk" to music with a slow, mellow groove, then later with a hard-driving, insistent rhythm because of the word's association with sexual intercourse. As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when "funk" and "funky" were used increasingly in the context of soul music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company.
James Brown, who had called Little Richard his idol, has credited Little Richard's mid-1950's saxophone-studded road band, The Upsetters, with first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat.
James Brown and funk as a genre
Only with the innovations of James Brown in the 1960's was funk regarded as a distinct genre. While James Brown's 1965 Top 10 King Records hit "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" is widely presumed to be the song that paved way for the funk genre, much of Brown's work in 1965 and 1966, though remarkable, still maintained the rhythms and approach found in earlier records. R&B #1's "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose" and "Mother Popcorn" in 1969 continued to solidify the tight rhythms, riffs and grooves for which funk music is known, setting the standard for James Brown's future work and the rising wave of funk to come in the 1970s. the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band were releasing funk tracks beginning with their first album in 1967, culminating in their classic single "Express Yourself" in 1970. The Meters defined funk in New Orleans starting with their Top Ten R&B hits "Sophisticated Cissy" and "Cissy Strut" in 1969. Another group who would define funk in the decade to come were The Isley Brothers whose funky 1969 #1 R&B hit, "It's Your Thing", signaled a breakthrough in African-American music bridging the gaps of the rock of Jimi Hendrix and the upbeat soul of Sly &
1970s and P-Funk
In the 1970s, a new group of musicians further developed the "funk rock" approach innovated by George Clinton, with his main bands Parliament and, later, Funkadelic. Together, they produced a new kind of funk sound heavily influenced by jazz and psychedelic rock.
"P-funk" also came to mean something in its quintessence, of superior quality, or sui generis, as in the lyrics from "P-Funk," a hit single from Parliament's album "Mothership Connection":
The 1970s was probably the era of highest mainstream visibility for funk music. Other prominent funk bands of the period included The Brothers Johnson, Earth, Wind & Fire and Tower of Power, took the rhythmic power of funk and added to it more complex song forms, combined with large scale instrumentation -- large horn sections, latin percussion, numerous capable soloists.
Already, in late 1960s, many jazz musicians — among them Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock (with his Headhunters band), Grover Washington, Jr., and Cannonball Adderley, Les McCann and Eddie Harris — had begun to combine jazz and funk. Additionally, in the late 1960s work of Miles Davis (with girlfriend/wife Betty Davis) and Tony Williams helped to create Jazz fusion and influenced funk.
Funk music was exported to Africa in the late 1960s, and melded with African singing and rhythms to form Afrobeat.
Disco music owed a great deal to funk. Some disco music hits, for example "Le Freak" by Chic, included riffs or rhythms very similar to funk music.
1980s and stripped-down funk
In the 1980s, many of the core elements that formed the foundation of the P-Funk formula began to be usurped by machines. Horns were replaced by synths, effectively phasing out horn sections, and the horns that remained were simplified from the patterns and hooks of the earlier funk sound. The classic keyboards of funk, like the Hammond B3 organ and the Fender Rhodes piano began to be replaced by the brash sound of new digital synthesizers like the Yamaha DX7. Rick James was the first funkateer of the 80s to assume the funk mantle dominated by P-Funk in the 70s. His 1981 album Street Songs with the singles "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak" resulted in James becoming a bit of a rock star, and paved the way for the future direction of explicitness in funk. Prince, using a stripped-down instrumentation similar to Rick James, went on to have as much of an impact on the sound of funk as any one artist since James Brown. The Time, originally conceived as an opening act for Prince and based on his "Minneapolis sound", went on to define their own style of stripped-down funk based on tight musicianship and sexual themes.
Bands that began during the 1970s P-Funk era incorporated some of the uninhibited sexuality of Prince and state-of-the-art technological developments to continue to craft funk hits. Cameo, Zapp, The Gap Band, The Bar-Kays, and The Dazz Band all found their biggest hits in the 80s, but by the latter half of the 80s, funk had lost its commercial impact.
Afrika Bambaataa, influenced by Kraftwerk, created "Electro Funk", a minimalist machine-driven style of funk with his single "Planet Rock" in 1982.
Recent developments
While funk was all but driven from the radio by slick commercial R&B and New Jack Swing, its influence continued to spread. Rock bands began adding elements of Funk to their sound, creating new combinations of "funk rock" and funk metal. Jane's Addiction, Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Prince, Primus, Fishbone, Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine spread the approach and styles garnered from funk pioneers to new audiences in the mid-to-late 1980s and the 1990s.
Artists like The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, and Me'shell Ndegeocello carried on with strong elements of funk in the 1990s, but never came close to reaching the commercial success of funk in its heyday.
Today, hip hop artists regularly sample old funk tunes. P-Funk also is sampled frequently — samples of old Parliament and Funkadelic songs formed the basis of West Coast G Funk. Dr. Dre (considered the progenitor of the G-Funk genre) has freely acknowledged to being heavily influenced by George Clinton's psychedelic funk: "Back in the 70s that's all people were doing: getting high, wearing Afros, bell-bottoms and listening to Parliament-Funkadelic.
Funk is a major element of certain artists identified with the Jam band scene of the late 1990s and 2000s. The Family Band, Galactic, Soulive, and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe all drawing heavily from the funk tradition. Karl Denson's Tiny Universe members have also pioneered a modernized version of the Funk sound with their "Funktronica" group BLUSIRKUT that maintains the syncopated rhythms, thick bass line, rhythm-oriented horn sections, prominent percussion, danceability of strong jazz influences - blending it with current technology to add electronic based elements and soundscapes (the instruments have become interchangeable - i.e. On an added note, Vermont-based Phish went through a period of funky jams which fans refer to as their "cow funk" stage.
Since the mid 1990s the New Funk scene, centered around the Deep Funk collectors scene, is producing new material influenced by the sounds of rare funk 45's. Although specializing in music for rare funk DJ's, there has been some crossover into the mainstream music industry, such as Sharon Jones' 2005 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
In the early 2000s, some so-called punk funk bands have achieved popularity in the indie music scene, such as !!!
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