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This programme contains very strong language | 0:00:02 | 0:00:07 | |
Funk. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:08 | |
Funk is a sensation, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
a universal feeling from another dimension. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:14 | |
Funk's that thump in your chest | 0:00:14 | 0:00:17 | |
that just makes you want to get on up and dance. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
Funk is all about rhythm. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
It affects your movements. It affects your speech. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
It affects the way that you dress. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
Funk, in its essence, makes you dance, makes you move. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
Some kind of tribal feeling, or tribal message, | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
that makes people want to dance from the core of their heart. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
Definition of funk? | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
Warm, damp place to give life. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
# Shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam! # | 0:00:44 | 0:00:48 | |
Funk's a state of mind. It's the sound of rebellion. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
A celebration of being black. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
What's interesting about funk is that it was ours. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
It actually brought us together. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
You know what funk music is? It's unapologetic blackness. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
HE SCREAMS Owww! | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
# Get up offa that thing | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
# And dance till you feel better... # | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
Funk spread the groove around the world. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:13 | |
Without it, much of the music we love today | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
would never have happened. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:18 | |
There probably would not be any hip-hop without funk music. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
That's all a funk attitude. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:23 | |
You know, "I'm a player, I'm a hustler." | 0:01:23 | 0:01:24 | |
That's all the stuff that George Clinton and those folks | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
were doing in the 1970s. It's just called hip-hop today. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
So, as we're standing on the verge of getting it on, | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
let's take it to the stage and discover the story | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
of how, in the 1970s, America was one nation under a groove. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:40 | |
# One nation under a groove | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
# Getting down just for the funk of it... # | 0:01:43 | 0:01:47 | |
By the mid-1970s, black America had gone totally funky. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
The groove was in full effect. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
MUSIC: Blackbyrds' Theme by The Blackbyrds | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
But just a decade earlier, it was another story. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
MUSIC: Heat Wave by Martha And The Vandellas | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
In the 1960s, it was hard just to be black. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:15 | |
There was prejudice, discrimination and segregation. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:18 | |
The only music made by African-Americans | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
that filtered through to the charts was the vanilla pop | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
of labels like Motown Records. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
# Could it be a devil in me | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
# Or is this the way love's supposed to be? | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
# It's like a heat wave... # | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
So in the early 1960s, the funk was a mere glint in Mother Nature's eye. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:39 | |
But one soul artist worked out a way to start the evolution. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:43 | |
WILD CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
James Brown began his career back in the 1950s as an R&B singer. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:58 | |
By the mid-'60s, he'd become so influential | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
and famous in black music, he was nicknamed the Godfather of Soul. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
But in 1967, James Brown left soul music behind. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:21 | |
With one song called Cold Sweat, he showed the world the future. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:26 | |
And that future was funk. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:27 | |
# I don't care | 0:03:35 | 0:03:36 | |
# About your past | 0:03:38 | 0:03:39 | |
# I just want | 0:03:42 | 0:03:43 | |
# Oh, our love to last... # | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
Cold Sweat was the song that just blew me away. That groove... | 0:03:47 | 0:03:53 | |
it was different from earlier James Brown. Something happened. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
# Ohhh, yeah! # | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
I think the thing that happens with Cold Sweat is that | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
that's where he really turned the whole band into a drum. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:09 | |
You know, so every element in there is just kicking. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
# I break out | 0:04:14 | 0:04:15 | |
# In a cold sweat... # | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
That was it, when he put that break in that record. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
Yeah, and the horns, everything. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
The bass, Bootsy, the whole thing. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
Yeah, that whole... That whole vibe was... | 0:04:33 | 0:04:34 | |
# I don't care... # | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
-THEY MIMIC THE GROOVE -# About your past... # | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
THEY MIMIC THE GROOVE | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
There was more emphasis on the bass and drum locking. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:59 | |
It became harder. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:01 | |
It was... | 0:05:01 | 0:05:03 | |
more intense, with less. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
James Brown surrounded himself with the best musicians money could buy, | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
but it was him alone who decided what was funky. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
He'd get the band members to jam together, and then, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
one by one, he'd get each of them to play | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
what he was hearing in his head. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:19 | |
You had to really try to understand what he was talking about, you know? | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
He would say a thing like... | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
HE MIMICS GROOVE | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
And it wouldn't really be anything, you know? | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
But a bass player could try to think something like what he's doing. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
He'd say, "No, that's not it." | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
They'd do something else, he'd say, "No, that's not..." | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
Then he'd... He'd say, "That's it! That's it!" | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
And when he said, "That's it!", you just kept what you were doing. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
Everybody hit it! | 0:05:47 | 0:05:48 | |
Come on, now! | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
Good God! Uh! | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
Previously with rhythm and blues, rock'n'roll and soul music, | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
the emphasis had been on the second and fourth beats of the bar. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
What James Brown did was to stress the first beat. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
This became the bedrock of funk music - the rhythm of the one. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
Hey! | 0:06:09 | 0:06:10 | |
Yeah! | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
Yeah! | 0:06:13 | 0:06:14 | |
Yeah! | 0:06:15 | 0:06:16 | |
There was that emphasis on... | 0:06:16 | 0:06:17 | |
MIMICS DRUM PATTERN | 0:06:17 | 0:06:22 | |
You know, his drumbeats. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
Yeah. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:26 | |
Beep beep! | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
Beep beep! | 0:06:29 | 0:06:30 | |
Beep beep! | 0:06:31 | 0:06:33 | |
James really conceived of the entire band | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
as bringing these strong rhythmic accents, | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
emphasising that first beat again and again and again. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
I mean, you know, every beat is there, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
but there's always that accent on the one, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
which is very African, you know? | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
From way back in Africa, that was that rhythm that would just... | 0:06:51 | 0:06:56 | |
You know, stir the soul, as it were. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
All of a sudden, groove was more important, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
whereas in years past, the middle part was very important | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
and the vocal, cos remember - | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
James wasn't doing a lot of lyrical, melodic vocals. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
He was... "Hiii! Good God! Uh!" | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
Because he was just basically riding and dancing on top of that groove. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:24 | |
Keep it down! | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
Beep beep! | 0:07:26 | 0:07:27 | |
It not only kind of changed the way listeners thought about | 0:07:27 | 0:07:33 | |
what dance music was, what funky music was, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
but a lot of songwriters and musicians, a lot of his peers. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
All that we know, all that we do... | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
James is the father. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
You know, they ain't call him The Godfather for nothing. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
He was the man that taught us all how to be funky. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
James Brown was funk's original pioneer, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
his Cold Sweat showing the path of the revolution. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
But the funk was not yet fully formed. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
Over on the West Coast of America, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
from the heart of San Francisco's peace and love generation, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
emerged a new funk phenomenon. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
Amongst the psychedelic rock scenes | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
of bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
this pioneering group was about to change the groove again. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
Hey, here's Sly & The Family Stone. Owww! | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
MUSIC: Dance To The Music | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
# Get up and dance to the music! | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
# Dance to the music | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
# Dance to the music... # | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
Where James Brown's funk was strictly controlled | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
by the Soul Brother Number One himself, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
in Sly & The Family Stone, everyone got involved with creating the vibe. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
Although they were a multi-racial, mixed-gender group, | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
they had a sense of togetherness | 0:08:59 | 0:09:00 | |
that really shone through in their music. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
A lot of bands back during that time, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
they would have the singing group out front | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
and the band would be the backing band. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
But we were self-contained, in that we were the band and we were | 0:09:10 | 0:09:14 | |
the singers as well, and we would all contribute to the lead lines. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:19 | |
Sly would sing a line, I would sing a line... | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
Usually always the low, uh... | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
-LOW VOICE: -# I'm going to add some bottom... # | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
# ..Add some bottom | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
# So that the dancers just won't hide... # | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
We all had our own musical background and experiences | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
that we were allowed to contribute to the band. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
So everybody brought something to the table. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
# You might like to hear my organ | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
# I said, "Ride, Sally, ride now"... # | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
Although Sly was the writer, | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
musically he would allow us to express ourselves, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
and I think that that really helped the band to be | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
kind of like a melting pot of music, so to speak. | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
It was this openness to new ideas | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
that allowed Larry Graham to go wild with his bass. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
He invented a new style of playing | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
that would become one of the sounds most associated with funk... | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
# Looking at the devil... # | 0:10:14 | 0:10:16 | |
..slap bass. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:17 | |
# Grinning at his gun | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
# Fingers start shaking | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
# I begin to run... # | 0:10:27 | 0:10:29 | |
It was a technique he'd developed playing with his mum as a kid. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
My mom decided that we weren't going to have drums any more. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
Now, I don't know if that was for economic reasons or what. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
Maybe two people could make more than dividing it up among three! | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
She never told me the reason. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:55 | |
But, "We're not going to have drums any more." | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
So that's when I started thumping the strings with my thumb | 0:10:57 | 0:11:02 | |
to make up for not having that bass drum, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
and plucking the strings with my finger | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
to make up for not having that backbeat on the snare drum, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:09 | |
so it's kind of playing the drums on the bass. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:13 | |
# Mama's so happy | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
# Mama starts to cry... # | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
After Thank You (Falettin Me)... | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
That became a huge template for every bass player | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
to start using the thumb slap. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
You talk about a song being written around a bass riff, that was it. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:39 | |
Later on, other bands, if you were going to play some serious funk, | 0:11:39 | 0:11:44 | |
you kind of had to have the bass player | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
play my style of playing the bass. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
Thank You was a number one record | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
that became a cornerstone of the funk. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
The way the bass riff left space for the rest of the band | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
to fill in the groove showed the next generation of funkateers | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
how to construct a hit song out of a jam. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
# Thank you falettin me be mice elf agin... # | 0:12:08 | 0:12:13 | |
The more space sometimes that you leave between the 2 and the 4, | 0:12:15 | 0:12:20 | |
and if you just play that continuously | 0:12:20 | 0:12:23 | |
and let it just brew on the same groove over and over | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
and over and over again, till it gets so powerful... | 0:12:26 | 0:12:31 | |
that is ridiculous. That's like the kind of funk that I like. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:35 | |
And then you make the ugly face. Like... | 0:12:35 | 0:12:39 | |
-SHE LAUGHS -That's funky. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
# Sing a simple song! | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... # | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
Everybody helped create the sound of the band, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
but Sly was very much the head of the family. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
He wrote the songs, the lyrics, and even told them what to wear. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
Their freaky clothes and afros would define the funk look of the 1970s. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
# It's a simple song at last | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
# Let me hear you say... | 0:13:04 | 0:13:05 | |
# Ahhh | 0:13:05 | 0:13:09 | |
# Ya-ya-ya, ya-ah-h-hhh... # | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
They came as a unit. They were dressed as a unit. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
They wore the funkiest clothes.... Oh, my God. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
Bell bottoms, platform shoes, hats, jackets with fur on the side... | 0:13:20 | 0:13:25 | |
It was almost like being in a dressed-up gang. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
He didn't like what I wore when I came to his house one day. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
So he looked down on the ground, | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
and he had a cowskin rug down there, and he goes, "Give me a razor." | 0:13:39 | 0:13:45 | |
And he got the razor, he went and cut a slit in the cowskin, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
I put it on as a poncho, and that was my outfit. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
I didn't choose that. That was hot and sweaty! | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
But after that, I paid attention. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:57 | |
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... # | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
It wasn't just the band's clothes that made them stand out. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
Back in the late-1960s, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:04 | |
a mixed-race group with a black lead singer was rare. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
Just performing on live television | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
was making a statement to the whole of America: | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
an integrated society could work. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
But for Sly & The Family Stone, | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
it was just about talented musicians making incredibly funky music. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
We just felt like a family, you know? | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
I didn't really look at Greg Errico or Jerry Martini as, you know, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:30 | |
the white members of the band, and I'm sure they weren't | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
looking at us as the black members of the band. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:35 | |
And so, the crowds that we played for, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
they looked at us like that and we looked at them like that. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:42 | |
# Huh! Watch me... # | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
But not everybody shared the same views. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:48 | |
For black Americans, the 1960s was a daily fight for racial equality. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
There was widespread rioting and violent clashes with authorities. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
It was rough, you know? | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
We had gotten used to being looked upon as second class, you know, | 0:14:59 | 0:15:04 | |
and not deserving first-class treatment, and that's a bad thing. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:10 | |
When people get used to being downtrodden and stepped on, | 0:15:10 | 0:15:15 | |
that's a real bad thing. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:16 | |
MUSIC: The Boss by James Brown | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
# Paid the cost to be the boss... # | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
James Brown believed he could help make a change. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
Thanks to some big funky hits in the second half of the '60s, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
he was a national superstar. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
And while he toured America, he used his fame | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
to talk to local black communities, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
inspiring them to succeed in a white-run world. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
When you go to get a job, don't go just to get a good job, | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
go in saying, "One of these days, I plan to own this company. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
"I'll be the general manager and build one of my own." | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
# Look at me! # | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
Brown believed money was the only way | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
for black people to have any real power. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
He felt that the secret to the success of the black community | 0:15:50 | 0:15:54 | |
hinged on being self-supportive | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
and not just depending on government support | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
or having to work for the white man. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
# Give it up to the funk... # | 0:16:07 | 0:16:09 | |
As the 1960s drew to a close, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
James became part of a growing group of black leaders | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
forcing America to wake up to the civil rights movement. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
We going to walk on this nation. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
We going to walk on this racist power structure, | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
and we're going to say to the whole damn government, | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
"Stick 'em up, motherfucker! | 0:16:26 | 0:16:27 | |
"This is a hold-up. We've come for what's ours." | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
# Give it up to the funk... # | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
But in April of 1968, | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
this political push was stopped dead in its tracks. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
Dr Martin Luther King, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:40 | |
the movement's figurehead, was murdered. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
When Martin Luther King was assassinated, you look and you go, | 0:16:44 | 0:16:50 | |
"Our heroes are being wiped out, one by one. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:54 | |
"What can we do? Just when we... | 0:16:55 | 0:16:59 | |
"you know, we're getting some place, we get knocked back down again." | 0:16:59 | 0:17:04 | |
Riots raged across America, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:08 | |
and as one of the nation's most prominent black figures, | 0:17:08 | 0:17:12 | |
pressure was on James Brown to respond. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:15 | |
James was pretty much the guy, you know, back then in the late '60s. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
There was pretty much nobody else that was as powerful and as strong | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
as James was, his voice and his music, and people listened to him. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:26 | |
# Uh! With your bad self... # | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
James' answer was to unite African-Americans | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
the best way he knew how - through the funk. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
# Say it loud | 0:17:34 | 0:17:35 | |
# I'm black and I'm proud... # | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
In 1968, he released one of pop music's most influential | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
cultural anthems - Say it Loud - I'm Black & I'm Proud. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:47 | |
# Say it loud | 0:17:47 | 0:17:48 | |
# I'm black and I'm proud... # | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
The single peaked at number ten on the national charts. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
Funk music was carrying a message of black empowerment | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
directly into mainstream America. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
The lyrics, everything, were right on. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
It was perfect, you know? | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
It instilled pride in us, you know? | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
It instilled a sense of purpose, | 0:18:07 | 0:18:11 | |
so we could go further in life if we wanted to, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
and not to be ashamed of the fact you were black, | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
because at that time, everybody was telling you, you were ashamed, | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
you know, to be ashamed of yourself, or "you'll never be nothing". | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
# Say it loud | 0:18:22 | 0:18:23 | |
# I'm black and I'm proud | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
# Say it loud | 0:18:26 | 0:18:27 | |
# I'm black and I'm proud... # | 0:18:27 | 0:18:30 | |
Well, he played it live in Jersey City, Roosevelt Stadium, | 0:18:30 | 0:18:35 | |
and they had about 30,000, 40,000. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
And everybody said, "I'm black and I'm proud." | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
-"Say it loud." -"Say it loud." | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
-In fact, they had to stop the concert. -Yeah. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:44 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:18:44 | 0:18:46 | |
Cos we got excited, you know? You want to tear something up now! | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
First time we played it live was in Houston, Texas. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
I'll never forget it. And James came on stage, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
and he said, "Say it loud..." | 0:18:55 | 0:18:56 | |
And the whole audience... | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
I tear up when I say this. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:01 | |
"I'm black and I'm proud!" You know? | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
It was...amazing. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:07 | |
Amazing. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
The whole audience said it. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
Must have been 20,000, 30,000 people there, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
and they all...all said, "I'm black and I'm proud." | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
# I am everyday people | 0:19:19 | 0:19:24 | |
# Yeah, yeah... # | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
While James Brown's funky protest anthem | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
plugged right into the heart of black America, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
Sly Stone was writing some anthems of his own. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
# We got to live together | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
# I am no better and neither are you | 0:19:40 | 0:19:44 | |
# We are the same whatever we do... # | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
He was the Family Stone's creative genius, | 0:19:48 | 0:19:51 | |
and whereas James Brown's lyrics were often about black pride, | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
Sly's message was about bringing people together. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
# I am everyday people... # | 0:19:57 | 0:20:02 | |
More important than anything, to me, is he was naturally funky, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:08 | |
and everybody in the band was funky, even me. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
But his lyrics were the most important things that he ever did. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
He is so brilliant. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:16 | |
I mean, even songs like Stand, if you listen to Stand, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
it was about the times. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
# Stand for the things you know are right | 0:20:22 | 0:20:28 | |
# It's the truth that the truth makes them so uptight | 0:20:28 | 0:20:32 | |
# Stand... # | 0:20:32 | 0:20:33 | |
There was no talk about violence. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
He doesn't talk about "get your weapons | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
"and stand up against something", you know what I'm saying? | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
It is just stand FOR it. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:43 | |
# ..Stand | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
# Stand. # | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
Sly & The Family Stone's sing-a-long songs | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
and hippy attitude appealed to both black and white record buyers. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
By the time the band played Woodstock Festival, | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
they'd already had two huge number one singles. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
If they could go down well in front of half a million rock fans, | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
the funk would truly have crossed over. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
# Hey, hey, hey, hey! | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
# Feeling's getting stronger | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
# Music's getting longer too... # | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
But arriving on stage at 3am, they had their work cut out. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
# ..I want to take you higher... # | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
About three or four songs into our set, people started getting into it | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
and coming out of their tents because it had been raining. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
It was amazing. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
But the energy coming from the audience... | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
So it was this whole thing that was driving... | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
They were driving us and we were driving them. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
And it was like a snowball effect. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:52 | |
It was pretty powerful. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:53 | |
# ..I want to take you higher. # | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
The roar of half a million people | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
going, "Yeeeeah," | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
I mean, | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
that was something that we had never heard before or felt before, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:12 | |
that kind of energy. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
-# ..Want to take you higher -Higher | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
-# Want to take you higher -Higher | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
-# Want to take you higher -Higher | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
-# Higher! -Higher! -Higher! -Higher! # | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
It was just a turning point for us, to be seen by that many people, | 0:22:30 | 0:22:37 | |
for it to be written about | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
by as many writers as wrote about the Woodstock event. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
It just changed the lives of a lot of entertainers. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:48 | |
Both Sly Stone and James Brown | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
had engineered the genetic make-up of funk. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
By the early 1970s, it became infectious, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
and soon the funk DNA was spreading all around the world, | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
spawning a wave of new music. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
# Can't get enough | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
# Of that funky stuff. # | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
There's just funk everywhere, it became the music of young people. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:19 | |
Funk had become the new hot music in the black community, | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
and amongst dance music fans. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
It was...it was the new shit. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
# Fire! | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
# Fire! # | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
Ohio Players, the Commodores, Kool & The Gang, Tower Of Power... | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
Funk was everywhere, everyone had a band, | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
everybody wanted to make music that was funky. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
You had Soul Train, you had "Soul!", | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
which were national TV shows that represented black music, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
black culture, so people were having it brought into their living room. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
# See how I'm walking See how I'm talking, Mamma | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
# Notice everything in me | 0:24:03 | 0:24:05 | |
# Your hand in mine And love me all the time | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
# The truth you will plainly see | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
# Come on and feel it. # | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
Even if you look at the Jackson 5, | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
at a certain point they broke away from the Motown model | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
they were given and they made Dancing Machine, | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
which was funk-influenced as well - they wanted to make music | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
that was funkier cos that's what was all around them. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
# Dancing, dancing, dancing | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
# She's a dancing machine | 0:24:30 | 0:24:33 | |
# Oh, baby, move it, baby. # | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
The Jackson 5 weren't the only act from the Motown family | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
to embrace the music. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:40 | |
Although the Detroit record label was initially reluctant | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
to let its stars join the party, the only ones who would survive | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
into the 1970s were those who could keep up with the funk. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
Little Stevie Wonder grew up from a child pop star | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
into a fully-grown songwriter | 0:24:55 | 0:24:56 | |
with a run of albums that featured some seriously funky cuts. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
# Very superstitious | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
# Writings on the wall | 0:25:04 | 0:25:06 | |
# Very superstitious | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
# Ladders 'bout to fall. # | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
And it wasn't long before British bands got their funk on too. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
Having begun their careers nicking riffs from African-American | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
blues artists, English rock bands like The Rolling Stones | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
and Led Zeppelin borrowed a few funk ones too, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
working a couple of tracks onto their multimillion-selling albums. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
# He sure is a good friend | 0:25:35 | 0:25:36 | |
# And I ain't going to tell you where he comes from, no. # | 0:25:36 | 0:25:42 | |
But it was a Scottish band who had | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
the funkiest sound in 1970s Britain. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
Average White Band started out as a covers group | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
obsessed with James Brown's funk records. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
They honed their chops on the London live circuit | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
and then put out their own monster slice of funk | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
called Pick Up The Pieces. It topped the American charts. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
MUSIC: Pick Up The Pieces by The Average White Band | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
The record sounded so authentic, there were a few surprises | 0:26:06 | 0:26:09 | |
when the band took to the road. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
A lot of audiences assumed we were black | 0:26:11 | 0:26:13 | |
because they'd heard the record on the radio, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
and they would turn up and it was like... | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
-when we came on! -Yeah. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:20 | |
And then as soon as we started to play, it was like, "Ah, OK." | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
# Pick up the pieces Pick up the pieces | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
# Pick up the pieces | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
# Pick up the pieces... # | 0:26:31 | 0:26:33 | |
They were so funky, even James Brown and his band | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
came to one of their shows to check out white funk in action. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
He said, "Yeah, you guys, I like you guys' groove." | 0:26:41 | 0:26:45 | |
You know, it was the ultimate compliment. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
Of course we went to the bar after that | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
and we were hanging with some of the guys, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
and they were saying, "Man, when your record came out, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:54 | |
"when Pick Up The Pieces came out, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:55 | |
"everyone was coming up to us and saying, | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
" 'Man, we love your new record!' And we're going, 'It ain't us! | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
" 'It ain't us, it's some SCAHTTISH band from SCAHTLAND!' " | 0:27:01 | 0:27:07 | |
Funk was taking over planet Earth, | 0:27:09 | 0:27:11 | |
but another funkateer was already orbiting our atmosphere, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
who would take the music into another dimension. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
Armed with laser-guided melodies, atomic grooves | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
and rhythmic devastation, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
this intergalactic funkonaut came from another planet. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
His name was George Clinton. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
By the end of the 1970s, Clinton had built a musical empire | 0:27:44 | 0:27:48 | |
that turned funk into a way of life. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:50 | |
# Make my funk the P-Funk | 0:27:52 | 0:27:53 | |
# Uncut funk | 0:27:53 | 0:27:55 | |
# I want my funk funked up | 0:27:55 | 0:27:56 | |
# P-Funk | 0:27:56 | 0:27:57 | |
# Make my funk the P-Funk | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
# Uncut | 0:27:59 | 0:28:00 | |
# I want to get funked up. # | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
It all began back in the 1950s, | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
when George Clinton led a barber-shop singing group | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
called The Parliaments. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
I remember them as being a stand-up group, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
wearing powder-blue suits, like The Temptations. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
And they had a song called I Just Wanna Testify. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
# And don't you know that I just want to testify | 0:28:19 | 0:28:24 | |
# What your love has done for me... # | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
But suits and smart haircuts wasn't George Clinton's thing. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
He had the funk inside of him and it just had to burst out. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:36 | |
From there, things really start to | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
unravel, because as George has said, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
they could not keep it smooth, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
keep it together, like those Motown acts. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
He said, "Yeah, we just sweated too much. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
"Guys started ripping off their shirts | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
"and choreography got messed up." | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
# Free your mind and your ass will follow... # | 0:28:55 | 0:29:00 | |
George walks in and he's got this mohawk, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:04 | |
cut his hair down here, | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
and he had colour over here. I said, "What's up, George?" | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
"Man, I'm taking this thing in another direction." | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
# ..Free your mind and your ass will follow | 0:29:13 | 0:29:18 | |
# The kingdom of heaven is within. # | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
George's plan was to find a new platform for the funk. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:27 | |
Although rock had developed out of the blues and R&B | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
created by African-Americans, | 0:29:30 | 0:29:32 | |
apart from Jimi Hendrix, there were virtually no black rock artists. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:36 | |
So in 1969, George Clinton set out to change that. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
He took the funk and married it with psychedelic rock. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
He called it Funkadelic, and that's exactly what it was - | 0:29:43 | 0:29:46 | |
acid rock with a huge dose of funk. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
# ..Well, I discovered that this life that was given to me | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
# Was not really mine | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
# Free your mind | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
# If it were mine I would have fun all the time. # | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
We were late, so we had to catch up with the psychedelic. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
So, of course, we just | 0:30:04 | 0:30:06 | |
turned everything up, had all the Marshalls in the world... | 0:30:06 | 0:30:10 | |
went into the studio | 0:30:10 | 0:30:11 | |
and did Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow all in one day, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
tripping on acid. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
# Yeah, yeah, yeah | 0:30:16 | 0:30:19 | |
# Yeah, yeah, yeah | 0:30:19 | 0:30:21 | |
# If you and your folks love me and my folks | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
# Like me and my folks love you and your folks | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
# If there ever was folks That ever, ever was poor. # | 0:30:28 | 0:30:33 | |
Those first four or five Funkadelic records are the most esoteric, | 0:30:33 | 0:30:40 | |
bizarre, experimental takes on what R&B could be imaginable. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:47 | |
Cos they are full of parody and full of satire, | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
but then they are full of this amazing musicianship. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
So it's not just guys kind of, you know, | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
taking the piss out of the R&B tradition | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
and the discipline of that, | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
but guys who actually know that discipline, know all the rules | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
and they know how to just completely abstract and...um, demolished it. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:14 | |
Although cult hits, Funkadelic's acid-drenched funk-rock albums | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
of the early '70s barely made the top 100 - | 0:31:22 | 0:31:25 | |
their experimental sound too challenging | 0:31:25 | 0:31:27 | |
for both white and black audiences. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:29 | |
But George Clinton was already moving on. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:32 | |
When everybody thinks they have them pegged, you know, | 0:31:32 | 0:31:37 | |
as these LSD-tripping, half-naked, performing...funk circus, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:43 | |
they revive Parliament, | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
but this time as... just this amazingly | 0:31:46 | 0:31:51 | |
spectacular, theatrical, dance-oriented act. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:56 | |
And George keeps some of the kind of conceptual... | 0:31:56 | 0:32:01 | |
um, headroom of Funkadelic in the thing, | 0:32:01 | 0:32:04 | |
but it is really masked by the beat. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
# Get up for the down stroke | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
# Everybody get up | 0:32:10 | 0:32:12 | |
# Get up for the down stroke | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
# Everybody get up | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
# Get up for the down stroke | 0:32:17 | 0:32:21 | |
# Everybody get up. # | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
George wanted Parliament to be the group | 0:32:23 | 0:32:25 | |
that got HIS funk into the pop charts. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:27 | |
He looked to James Brown's band for help. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
Bass player Bootsy Collins, his guitarist brother Catfish, | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
and most of the horn section were tired of Brown's control-freakery. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:37 | |
They jumped ship to join Parliament, bringing with them | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
Brown's theory of keeping it on the one. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:42 | |
But with George, they could go as wild and as funky as they wanted. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
James Brown wanted, "Just like this, just like that." | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
Just like he said, everything had to be just like he said. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:57 | |
But George Clinton would take anything that you did | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
initially, but he would either mix it out or mix it in, | 0:33:00 | 0:33:04 | |
he would choose whether to use it or not. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:07 | |
I did some stuff that was so crazy | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
that George would say, "Did you mean that?" | 0:33:09 | 0:33:10 | |
And I would say, "Yes, I meant that." And he would use it. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:14 | |
It was freedom, freedom, you could do whatever you wanted. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:18 | |
You could make any kind of music that was in your heart, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:23 | |
that you could imagine you can do. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
There were no rules. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:26 | |
# Tear the roof off | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
# We're gonna tear the roof off the mother, sucker | 0:33:28 | 0:33:30 | |
# Tear the roof off the sucker. # | 0:33:30 | 0:33:32 | |
With George Clinton in charge, it was pure creative freedom, | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
whether in the studio or on stage. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
From the mid-1970s onwards, Clinton joined Parliament | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
and Funkadelic into one big touring circus. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
He called the whole thing P-Funk | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
and turned the concerts into total theatre. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
# We want the funk, come on | 0:33:50 | 0:33:52 | |
# Get up off your ass now! # | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
P-Funk shows were like going to the circus, it had everything. | 0:33:55 | 0:34:01 | |
It was just like watching images like this, like, what's going on? | 0:34:01 | 0:34:08 | |
# Do you want to fly this evening? | 0:34:08 | 0:34:11 | |
# Do you want to ride | 0:34:14 | 0:34:15 | |
# On the mother ship? # | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
First of all, there's a little tiny spaceship | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
coming in from the back of the hall, all the way to the front. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:27 | |
And then the mother ship just comes down. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:31 | |
And then George comes up out of the floor... | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
It was incredible. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:46 | |
# Everybody say goddamn! | 0:34:46 | 0:34:48 | |
# Get off your ass! | 0:34:48 | 0:34:50 | |
# Goddamn! # | 0:34:51 | 0:34:52 | |
It was one continuous song. It never stopped. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
I think they would have to pull the plug to tell them to get offstage. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
They played for two, three, four hours at a time, | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
and just keep playing | 0:35:04 | 0:35:05 | |
until it was like, "Cut! We've got to turn the lights off!" | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
# Give it up, y'all! # | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
There could be over 30 musicians on stage, | 0:35:13 | 0:35:15 | |
but they all knew how to play together, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:17 | |
keeping it all on the rhythm of the one. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
The funk had become a spiritual experience. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:23 | |
It's that tribal thing, and what it is is listening to a heartbeat. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:27 | |
Everyone listening to the same heartbeat. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
Boom, boom, ba-ba, boom, boom. Boom, boom, ba-ba. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:34 | |
You started hearing that. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:35 | |
And you get the people feeling more tribal, | 0:35:35 | 0:35:38 | |
and when you become tribal it brings together unity to the music. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:44 | |
MUSIC: Night Of The Thumpasorus People | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
It was this sense of unity that was bringing thousands | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
of black P-Funk fans together at huge concerts all over America. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
This was the first time a black act had rivalled | 0:35:57 | 0:36:00 | |
the big live shows of the 1970s' white rock bands. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:03 | |
And for many African-American teenagers, | 0:36:03 | 0:36:06 | |
this was THEIR stadium rock experience. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
P-Funk always had a humongous black audience, | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
so they were playing sold-out stadiums full of black people. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
Like, if you went to a P-Funk concert in DC, | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
you know, as I did, like, in the '70s, | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
you never saw any white people there. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:26 | |
And it was black America buying the records, | 0:36:30 | 0:36:33 | |
taking monster P-Funk jams like One Nation Under A Groove | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
and Flashlight to the top of the R&B charts. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
# Flashlight... # | 0:36:40 | 0:36:41 | |
As the money started rolling in, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
George Clinton turned P-Funk into an empire. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
I figured the best way to keep the dream alive is get as many | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
deals as you could. One group, you have one chance to make it. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:59 | |
Two groups, you've got two chances. And Bootsy made it three. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
Then I realised everybody around you wants to be a star. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:07 | |
And we all helped each other - | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
it was the same people on everybody's record, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
just another person got out front. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:13 | |
We did Bootsy, Fred Wesley And The Horny Horns, | 0:37:13 | 0:37:18 | |
Eddie Hazel, | 0:37:18 | 0:37:20 | |
Bernie Worrell... | 0:37:20 | 0:37:22 | |
We did everything, we even recorded the roadies. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
Cos most roadies are musicians too. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
# Well, all right, gotcha... # | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
At the height of its success, | 0:37:32 | 0:37:34 | |
there were nearly 100 musicians in the P-Funk gang. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
It may have seemed like a crazy army of funk, | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
but just like James Brown and Sly Stone, | 0:37:40 | 0:37:42 | |
there was meaning behind the music. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
They were very serious about their message. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:47 | |
Their whole vibe was black and about black empowerment | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
in different ways, and so I think that people | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
who don't understand that | 0:37:53 | 0:37:55 | |
don't really understand funk music, don't understand P-Funk. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
The thing was to make you think. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
We'd say stuff off the wall, but you have to ponder it. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
"What the hell is he talking about?" | 0:38:04 | 0:38:05 | |
Might not be talking about nothing, but it leads you into thinking, | 0:38:05 | 0:38:10 | |
and when you tell somebody no, you REALLY turn them on to thinking. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:15 | |
So we would do a lot of things that we know people would say, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
"No, don't do that." | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
Like, if you will suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions. | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
# If you will suck my soul | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
# I will lick your funky emotions... # | 0:38:29 | 0:38:35 | |
You don't know why, but that just don't sound like | 0:38:35 | 0:38:37 | |
something you were supposed to say. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:39 | |
You know, and that makes you think, "What are they saying?" | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
# ..What's happening, CC? | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
# They still call it the White House | 0:38:43 | 0:38:44 | |
# But that's a temporary condition | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
# Can you dig it, CC? # | 0:38:46 | 0:38:48 | |
The P-Funk philosophy inspired black people to believe in themselves | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
and told them they could achieve the unachievable in 1970s America. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:57 | |
We had to get a lot of black people up off their knees, | 0:38:57 | 0:38:59 | |
who were thinking they COULDN'T do these things, | 0:38:59 | 0:39:02 | |
who were ashamed of being black, ashamed of being a Negro, | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
ashamed of being everything. They did not know what they wanted | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
to be called cos it was built into you to be ashamed of yourself. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
You're told your options are limited, | 0:39:11 | 0:39:13 | |
you're told not to think about a life beyond the givens, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:19 | |
and here are these guys saying, you can be astronauts, | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
you can be aliens, you can be Ancient Egyptian mad scientists. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:28 | |
When they talk about black folks in outer space, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:30 | |
we didn't think black folks would be in outer space | 0:39:30 | 0:39:32 | |
unless we smoked weed or something. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:34 | |
So they were saying, "No, you can actually do this." | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
Parliament, Funkadelic, George Clinton, | 0:39:36 | 0:39:38 | |
they are liberators of the black imagination in 20th-century America. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:42 | |
That is the revolution they kind of fought and won. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:46 | |
But funk's power to free the black imagination | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
was reaching outside of the music business too. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:52 | |
In the 1970s, a wave of action films | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
were produced BY black people FOR black people. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:57 | |
Now known as Blaxploitation films, they were often | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
cartoon and sometimes controversial characterisations | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
of African-American life, or spoofs of classic Hollywood movies. | 0:40:02 | 0:40:07 | |
But they all drew from 1970s black culture - | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
the fashion, the language, and of course, the music. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
Every movie had a funky soundtrack. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:17 | |
You were getting these artists who had an opportunity to score movies. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:25 | |
# Ain't I clean? Bad machine | 0:40:25 | 0:40:27 | |
# Super cool, super mean | 0:40:27 | 0:40:29 | |
# Dealin' good, for The Man | 0:40:29 | 0:40:30 | |
# Superfly, here I stand... # | 0:40:30 | 0:40:33 | |
Music made the film and the film made the music. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:36 | |
# ..I'm your pusherman... # | 0:40:36 | 0:40:39 | |
Freeze! | 0:40:39 | 0:40:40 | |
Blaxploitation movies gave African-American actors | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
the opportunity to star in leading roles, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
something 1970s Hollywood was denying them. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
-OK, Tom, used up your minute - get out! -Don't "Tom" me, man. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
MACHINE GUN FIRE | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
With funk music very much in the foreground of the | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
movie soundtracks, the films had an unapologetically black swagger. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
A feeling that was directly taken from the funk. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:06 | |
I can't tell you how empowering it was for us to see | 0:41:06 | 0:41:08 | |
ourselves on screen that way, | 0:41:08 | 0:41:10 | |
and it was literally people that we saw in our communities with | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
the big Afros, the colourful shirts, medallions, necklaces... | 0:41:13 | 0:41:17 | |
They were walking like you walked, when you were | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
walking down 63rd Street. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:21 | |
They didn't just walk - they swaggered down. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:23 | |
They had style. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:25 | |
They were wearing the kind of clothes that you were wearing. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
It was just a wonderful time for a lot of actors | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
that couldn't buy a part... to play in a movie. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
And I just felt that was fantastic that our people got to work. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:40 | |
A lot of our people got a chance to get a payday. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:44 | |
Funk music was at the centre of a cultural shift where, | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
for the first time, African-Americans were able | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
to proudly display their blackness. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
They no longer had to deny their African heritage | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
and were empowered to explore a history | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
the American education system had wilfully ignored. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:01 | |
It was necessary for us to recognise our identity, | 0:42:01 | 0:42:05 | |
because it was taken away from us and denied us for so long. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
And suppressed. It was necessary for us to have that reinforced. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:15 | |
A lot of people became more aware | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
of our background, where we came from, | 0:42:25 | 0:42:29 | |
and I think that they were very proud of where us | 0:42:29 | 0:42:36 | |
and a lot of our ancestors came from. | 0:42:36 | 0:42:40 | |
The strength that it took to endure a lot of the things that had to | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
be endured just to survive. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:46 | |
And it started to be expressed musically, but also in fashion. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:53 | |
-ALL: -Beautiful people know true beauty is natural. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:55 | |
-Wear their naturals proudly. -Wear their naturals proudly. | 0:42:55 | 0:42:59 | |
-As a symbol of pride in blackness. -As a symbol of pride in blackness. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:03 | |
Funk was at the forefront of this new wave of black pride, | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
with many musicians adopting African imagery. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
# Mama ko mama sa maka makoosa | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
# Mama ko mama sa maka makoosa... # | 0:43:13 | 0:43:15 | |
When Kool & The Gang looked back to Africa, | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
it gave them their first big hit records. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
They took spiritual and rhythmic themes from African artists like | 0:43:20 | 0:43:24 | |
Manu Dibango and transformed them into funk. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:28 | |
Our producer at that time, Gene Redd, said, | 0:43:28 | 0:43:30 | |
"I want you to record Soul Makossa." | 0:43:30 | 0:43:33 | |
"We don't really need to make a copy," | 0:43:33 | 0:43:38 | |
because we felt that our music was creative enough. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:41 | |
So we make up our own Soul Makossa. | 0:43:41 | 0:43:43 | |
So we went in the studio, made it up in the morning, right? At Baggy's. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
Funky Stuff, Holywood Swinging and Jungle Boogie. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
So we stumbled upon our first gold records by not doing Soul Makossa. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:55 | |
-Mm-hm. -We thought we'd make our own jungle music. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:58 | |
# Jungle boogie | 0:43:58 | 0:44:00 | |
# Jungle boogie | 0:44:00 | 0:44:02 | |
# Get it on | 0:44:02 | 0:44:03 | |
# Jungle boogie | 0:44:03 | 0:44:04 | |
-# Jungle boogie -Get it on | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
-# Jungle boogie -Get up with the boogie... # | 0:44:07 | 0:44:10 | |
Kool & The Gang were just one of many funk groups | 0:44:10 | 0:44:12 | |
who were all over the charts in the 1970s. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
But emerging from this scene was one band that would eclipse them all. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:21 | |
# Yeah | 0:44:27 | 0:44:29 | |
# Hey | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
# When you wish upon a star | 0:44:33 | 0:44:35 | |
# Your dreams will take you very far, yeah... # | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
In the second half of the 1970s, Earth, Wind & Fire | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
beamed their precision funk into the homes of millions. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
Started by funky drummer Maurice White, | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
this nine-piece band brought with them a meticulous level | 0:44:50 | 0:44:53 | |
of musicianship that made funk more popular than ever. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:57 | |
# ..You're a shining star | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
# No matter who you are | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
# Shining bright to see | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
-# What you can truly be -What you can truly be! # | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
They used the same elements, | 0:45:07 | 0:45:09 | |
in terms of gospel, funk, jazz, soul - | 0:45:09 | 0:45:15 | |
all of that was in their music in the same way | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
it was in George Clinton's music, | 0:45:17 | 0:45:19 | |
it's just it was more polished. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
Do you believe in love this evening? | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
AUDIENCE SCREAMS | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
Do you believe love was written in the stone? | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
CHEERING | 0:45:28 | 0:45:30 | |
George Clinton's music was a harder sounding funk. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:34 | |
The long jams, psychedelic freak-outs | 0:45:34 | 0:45:36 | |
and lyrical in-jokes could sometimes alienate audiences. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
Earth, Wind & Fire was a lighter style, using the rhythms | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
and grooves to make catchy pop songs with a universal appeal. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:48 | |
# I found that love provides the key | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
# Unlocks the heart and souls of you and me... # | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
There were people for whom Funkadelic was just too weird. | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
Earth, Wind & Fire, their agenda was definitely to make | 0:46:00 | 0:46:03 | |
a black sound that also kind of reached into | 0:46:03 | 0:46:06 | |
mainstream Middle America as well. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:09 | |
# Come to see victory | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
# In a land called fantasy... # | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
Earth, Wind & Fire's funk-lite was not just more appealing to whites, | 0:46:15 | 0:46:19 | |
but also to the black middle classes, whose numbers were | 0:46:19 | 0:46:22 | |
significantly rising in the late 1970s. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:24 | |
Moving into white areas, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:28 | |
these newly affluent African-Americans were keen to | 0:46:28 | 0:46:31 | |
portray an image of black sophistication | 0:46:31 | 0:46:33 | |
that Earth, Wind & Fire represented. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:35 | |
The music is in some ways kind of leading that charge... | 0:46:39 | 0:46:43 | |
of segments of black America being able to move out of the hood | 0:46:43 | 0:46:49 | |
and into these areas with nicer homes, nicer schools, nicer lawns. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:55 | |
So there's a sociological parallel. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
It was a new audience for the funk, | 0:46:59 | 0:47:01 | |
and they bought Earth, Wind & Fire's records in their millions. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
In the late 1970s, the group scored five top ten albums, | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
selling out huge stadiums all over America. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:12 | |
They were one of the biggest bands on the planet, | 0:47:12 | 0:47:14 | |
and the funk was at the height of its powers. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
# Gonna tell the story Morning glory | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
# All about the serpentine fire | 0:47:21 | 0:47:24 | |
# Gonna tell the story Morning glory | 0:47:24 | 0:47:28 | |
# All about the serpentine fire | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah... # | 0:47:33 | 0:47:39 | |
Earth, Wind & Fire's phenomenal record sales allowed them | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
to take P-Funk's live show concepts to the next level. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
While they belted out their perfectionist funk, | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
they stunned their audiences with extravagant costumes, | 0:47:51 | 0:47:54 | |
choreographed dances and elaborate magic tricks. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:57 | |
This may have been the funk at its most commercial, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
but at the end of the '70s, it was the greatest show on Earth. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:07 | |
One of Maurice's visions, brilliant, was that as well as having | 0:48:07 | 0:48:13 | |
a well-honed and toned band, musically, | 0:48:13 | 0:48:18 | |
let's give the people a feast for their eyes as well as their ears. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
We were kind of into Egyptology at the time, the pyramids and the | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
Sphinx and all that, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
it was part of our...our persona, part of our show. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:36 | |
CHEERING | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
People thought we could levitate! People thought we could... | 0:48:46 | 0:48:51 | |
I mean, they really thought we were magicians after a while. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
They were doing tricks, disappearing, the drums | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
were moving, they were moving and different elements on stage. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
It was crazy, it was like a magic show/fashion show, a dance-off. | 0:49:09 | 0:49:16 | |
I mean, I was exhausted, I felt like I had performed. | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
I was so busy screaming and yelling, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
"Aah, I love that song! Aah!" You know? | 0:49:21 | 0:49:24 | |
But just as it seemed the funk was fully evolved, | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
a rival groove was working its way into our atmosphere. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:31 | |
Once it broke through, it would take over our entire planet. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:35 | |
The funk was under serious threat. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:37 | |
# Shake, shake, shake | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
# Shake, shake, shake | 0:49:39 | 0:49:41 | |
# Shake your booty | 0:49:41 | 0:49:42 | |
# Shake your booty... # | 0:49:42 | 0:49:45 | |
When disco came in, uh...things started changing. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:50 | |
Almost overnight. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
And it was unfortunate for a lot of those funk acts, | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
cos it just sort of killed them dead in their tracks. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:01 | |
Disco was so big, they was having them in grocery stores at night. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:05 | |
Funeral parlours moved the caskets out the way, turned it into a disco. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:09 | |
They was in demand. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:11 | |
Although disco retained elements of the funk, | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
something vital was missing. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
Funk's heartbeat - the rhythm of the one - had gone up in smoke. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:22 | |
# Burn, baby, burn | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
# Disco inferno | 0:50:24 | 0:50:25 | |
# Burn, baby, burn | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
# Burn that mother down, y'all... # | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
The beat went to four on the floor. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
It became boom-boom-boom-boom, no syncopation, | 0:50:33 | 0:50:38 | |
so you just had this boom-boom-boom-boom. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:41 | |
And funk is bump, tacky-ticky-tack - syncopated beat. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:47 | |
So the beat went to boom-boom-boom. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:49 | |
# Ooh, it's so good, it's so good | 0:50:49 | 0:50:54 | |
# It's so good, it's so good | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
# It's so good... # | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
In the clubs, I guess, disco is easier to dance to. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:03 | |
It was a straight beat. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:04 | |
But one beat, to do everything with that beat is like making love | 0:51:04 | 0:51:08 | |
with the same stroke. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:10 | |
One stroke, get on your nerves so bad, you won't be able to come, | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
it's like not being able to come. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
The natural rhythms of funk that made it so human | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
were being replaced by the computerised precision | 0:51:18 | 0:51:21 | |
of electronic instruments. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
I remember having conversations with many drummers | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
and percussion players to say, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
"Oh, my God, what's going to happen, | 0:51:29 | 0:51:31 | |
"are we going to have a job any more, are we going to be able to play? | 0:51:31 | 0:51:34 | |
"Who's going to hire us? | 0:51:34 | 0:51:35 | |
"Because now it's all about drum machine and technology." | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
The funk had to adapt to survive. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
Earth, Wind & Fire tackled disco head-on by switching their groove | 0:51:44 | 0:51:47 | |
and punching into the charts with one of their biggest hit records. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
# Dance | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
# Boogie wonderland | 0:51:55 | 0:51:57 | |
# Dance! | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
# Boogie wonderland | 0:52:02 | 0:52:07 | |
# Midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men | 0:52:07 | 0:52:12 | |
# Who need more than they get... # | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
Many of the '70s' bands were posed with a dilemma - | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
get down with the disco beat, | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
or stay true to the funk and lose your record deal. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
The reality is, Maurice didn't want to do Boogie Wonderland. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
And Verdine and I said, "We should do it." | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
When it started shooting up the charts, Maurice was like, | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
"Yeah, yeah." You know? | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
So there's a slippery slope you have to walk between so-called | 0:52:33 | 0:52:39 | |
staying current and staying true to what got you current. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
# Yes, it's ladies' night and the feeling's right | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
# Oh, yes, it's ladies' night, oh, what a night... # | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
Other funk bands realised it was time to change too. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
Kool & The Gang - formerly an instrumental group - | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
introduced a singer, adapted the beat | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
and enjoyed the most successful hits of their career. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
Ladies' Night wasn't straight-up disco, Ladies' Night was nice | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
because you still heard the Kool & The Gang style | 0:53:05 | 0:53:08 | |
-with them horns and where the groove was. -Watered down, of course, but... | 0:53:08 | 0:53:12 | |
But our die-hard funk fans, they did NOT like that. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:16 | |
They hated it. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:17 | |
No, they said, "They sold out, they crossed over, | 0:53:17 | 0:53:21 | |
-"they doing songs like Joanna." -We did. | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
-We sold out...of every record in the store. -We could sell. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:29 | |
-The record company didn't have no problem with that. -Nah, no problem. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
But the original pioneers struggled to survive as disco took over. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:40 | |
James Brown, once such an innovator of black music, | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
was now playing catch up, his new watered-down sound failing to sell. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
By the end of the 1970s, Sly & The Family Stone had disbanded, | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
with Sly practically disappearing | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
from public life due to a serious drug problem. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
And as the clubs and dance floors of America were getting down to | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
that four to the floor... | 0:54:06 | 0:54:07 | |
..George Clinton's empire was in tatters, | 0:54:09 | 0:54:11 | |
as he battled record label disputes | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
and the spiralling costs of running his army of P-Funk musicians. | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
With a new decade on the horizon, how could the funk continue? | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
The answer, once again, | 0:54:30 | 0:54:31 | |
came straight out of the African-American community. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
# Left my wallet in El Segundo | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
# Left my wallet in El Segundo... # | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
Just like funk, this new music form | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
was a direct reflection of black life. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
They called it hip-hop, | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
and thanks to sampling technology, at its heart was funk. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
# Just me, myself and I... # | 0:54:49 | 0:54:51 | |
There probably would not be any hip-hop without funk music. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
James Brown, the most sampled artist in music history - | 0:54:56 | 0:54:59 | |
pioneer of funk music. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:01 | |
Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton - | 0:55:01 | 0:55:04 | |
second most sampled artist in pop music history. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:08 | |
Foundation for hip-hop. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:09 | |
# Yo, pretty ladies around the world... # | 0:55:09 | 0:55:12 | |
While hip-hop raided funk's back catalogue, | 0:55:12 | 0:55:15 | |
other graduates of the 1970s | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
school of funk were keeping the groove alive. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
A wave of 1980s bands used digital production to keep funk | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
relevant for the next generation. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:25 | |
# Word up | 0:55:25 | 0:55:27 | |
# Everybody say... # | 0:55:27 | 0:55:29 | |
As did one man from Minnesota who spent his childhood | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
worshipping at the church of Brown, Stone and Clinton. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
# Controversy... # | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
Prince began his career in funk, but by the mid-1980s, he'd moved on | 0:55:44 | 0:55:48 | |
to rock, pop and whatever else tickled his purple fancy. | 0:55:48 | 0:55:52 | |
# Do you get high? | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
# Does your daddy cry? | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
# Controversy... # | 0:55:59 | 0:56:00 | |
He made himself into a superstar in the process, | 0:56:00 | 0:56:03 | |
but that irresistible groove has always underpinned his music... | 0:56:03 | 0:56:07 | |
# Let's funk | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
# Uh, let's roll... # | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
..his recent records a celebration of his funk roots. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
# ..Let's funk. # | 0:56:16 | 0:56:19 | |
The last 20 years have seen the beats, breaks | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
and bass-lines of funk embedded into popular music. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:25 | |
As George Clinton would say, it's in the DNA. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:29 | |
# And that's why I'm gon' take a good girl | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
# I know you want it, I know you want it... # | 0:56:32 | 0:56:36 | |
Blurred Lines, the big hit by Robin Thicke during the last year that | 0:56:36 | 0:56:39 | |
was produced by Pharrell, multiple rhythms, that's funk music, man. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
What Pharrell Williams is doing, that's all funk. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
Daft Punk - definitely a funk album. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:48 | |
-# Lose yourself to dance -Come on, come on, come on | 0:56:48 | 0:56:53 | |
-# Lose yourself to dance -Come on, come on, come on | 0:56:53 | 0:56:57 | |
-# Lose yourself to dance -Come on, come on, come on.... # | 0:56:57 | 0:57:00 | |
While the funk continues to mutate and survive in the 21st century, | 0:57:00 | 0:57:03 | |
the original funkateers who pioneered this music | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
in the 1970s are still keeping the groove alive today. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
# You're a shining star No matter who you are | 0:57:11 | 0:57:15 | |
# Shining bright to see | 0:57:15 | 0:57:17 | |
# What you can truly be | 0:57:17 | 0:57:19 | |
# You can truly be... # | 0:57:19 | 0:57:20 | |
When you look at the black music that's booked and appears all over | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
the world - Larry Graham in China, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:30 | |
there's a huge funk market in Japan - | 0:57:30 | 0:57:32 | |
this music has become an international language. | 0:57:32 | 0:57:35 | |
# Red-hot momma from Louisiana | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
# Thumbin' her way to Savannah | 0:57:38 | 0:57:40 | |
# She's been cooped up too long... # | 0:57:40 | 0:57:42 | |
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic | 0:57:42 | 0:57:44 | |
are still out on the road doing their thing, | 0:57:44 | 0:57:46 | |
Bootsy's still doing his thing, Fred Wesley, Maisie-o, | 0:57:46 | 0:57:50 | |
all of these veterans are still out here keeping it alive. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
# ..Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:57:53 | 0:57:59 | |
# Ride on, red hot mama You sure look good to me | 0:57:59 | 0:58:03 | |
# Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
# Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me... # | 0:58:09 | 0:58:13 | |
Funk will never die, funk will be here for ever, | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
because as long as there's things like oppression | 0:58:16 | 0:58:19 | |
and discrimination, and people feeling marginalised, | 0:58:19 | 0:58:22 | |
there's always going to be a need for people | 0:58:22 | 0:58:24 | |
to create some sort of multi-rhythm music that's | 0:58:24 | 0:58:26 | |
so different than everything you will ever hear on the radio. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:29 | |
That's funk music. | 0:58:29 | 0:58:30 | |
# ..Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:58:32 | 0:58:34 | |
# Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
# Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:58:39 | 0:58:44 | |
# Ride on, red-hot momma You sure look good to me | 0:58:45 | 0:58:51 | |
-# Ride on -Yeah, yeah, yeah. # | 0:58:51 | 0:58:57 | |
Yeah. | 0:58:57 | 0:58:59 |