Funk is a slippery category, not so much a musical genre but rather a feeling, nurtured in the blues, schooled in R&B, spirited as a sonic dust devil, fatback organ and shape-shifting guitar, Gabriel’s mighty horn, smoldering saxophone and slinky low-down second-line bass, polyrhythm and a crosscut saw, percussive anvil hammer at the forging fire of beauty, weaving lightning through this masquerade of darkness, a slumbering nocturne and the wail of a long lonesome train, the unanswered call and response, “Where does the night go?”
Funk genesis, social history, people on the move, involuntary, desperate to live, so many routes and tributaries of rhythm, West Africa and the Caribbean, New Orleans, Memphis, coursing the Mississippi, trawling the American South, Houston, Fort Worth, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, New York, LA, San Francisco and the Spanish main. For all ages young enough to dream, a little trip on the night train.
Title | Artist | Album | Composer | Label (Year)
Night Train | Jimmy Forrest | Jimmy Forrest’s Night Train | Jimmy Forrest | United Records (1952)
Peter Gunn | King Curtis | Have Tenor Sax Will Blow | Henry Mancini | Atco (1959)
One Mint Julep | Ray Charles | Genius + Soul = Jazz | Rudy Toombs | Impulse (1961)
Green Onions | Booker T & The MGs | Green Onions | Booker T. Jones; Al Jackson; Lewis Steinberg; Steve Cropper | Stax (1962)
I Got You (I Feel Good) | James Brown | I Got You (I Feel Good) | James Brown | King Records (1966)
Cissy Strut | The Meters | The Meters | Art Neville; George Porter Jr; Joseph “Ziggy” Modeliste; Leo Nocentelli | Josie (1969)
Everyday People | Sly & The Family Stone | Stand | Sylvester Stewart | Epic (1969)
(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go | Curtis Mayfield | Curtis | Curtis Mayfield | Curtom (1970)
Related to What Chant | The Last Poets | This Is Madness | Omar Ben Hassen; Alafia Pudim; Nilaja Obabi | Douglas (1971)
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised | Gil Scott-Heron | Pieces of a Man | Gil Scott-Heron | Flying Dutchman (1971)
What’s Going On | Marvin Gaye | What’s Going On | Marvin Gaye | Tamla (1971)
Slippin’ into Darkness | War | All Day Music | Howard Scott; Harold Brown | United Artists (1971)
Four Cornered Room | War | The World Is a Ghetto | Howard Scott; Harold Brown | United Artists (1972)
Young Enough to Dream | John Handy | Hard Work | John Handy | ABC Impulse! (1976)
