By the way, if anyone's interested, there's a pretty decent 2000 academic journal article all about NOLA second line and James Brown's style of funk by Alexander Stewart called: "'Funky Drummer': New Orleans, James Brown and the rhythmic transformation of American popular music." (Popular Music, Vol 19/3, 2000).
When I saw Brown in '80 a preacher came out and gave him an award for all his charitable work. This was part of the show and others who saw him in the '80s may have seen this. I remember the preacher said: I'm a preacher But I've been around I've been uptown I've been downtown but one thing I found If you want to get down You got to have James Brown
I didn't know it at the time, but I am sure today that it was Al Sharpton.
It had to have been, because he was spewing that same rhyme fifteen years later on James Brown's Live At The Apollo 1995 album.
By the way - I noticed that the drums and vocals were panned on separate channels so I went back to "I've Got Money" and just isolated the drums and guitar.
By the way - I noticed that the drums and vocals were panned on separate channels so I went back to "I've Got Money" and just isolated the drums and guitar.
Apart from the insane hi-hat and snare combos that Fillyau is tossing around here, peep the bass drum syncopation.
1963 people. '63.
Cot damn... that's my first time hearing this schitt too! DAMN. That's gotta be it right there... it's on the one like a muthafucka, it's funky, you can buss raps to it... that's it, that's the beginning of funk right there. Sheeeeeeeeiiiiiit... you gots to SHOW me some funky beat schitt that came before this. I can't see there being anything else, but who knows... I didn't know about this damn record either.
Slow that schitt down, let Marley hook it up w/ the "Think" shakers and some scratches on the hook, let 1988 BDK rip it like he did on Wrath Of Kane...
This is exactly what I am saying. Brown was influenced by NOLA, Brown influenced NOLA. Your question was when did Brown start emphasising the one, to which HC responded that it was when he started appropriating NOLA rhythms. Which did seem to releate to your question but did relate to his belife that all music is stolen from NOLA. Which does not give James and band the credit they deserve for creating a new musical style. A style that was influenced by NOLA rhythms and jazz, and by Louis Jordan, and calypso and all kinds of other things.
I'm coming late into this thread, but this is exactly where it comes from. Before James Brown became a force, it was jazz and jazz musicians who did a lot of networking. They heard each other's records, jammed with each other after hours, and perhaps heard the music on whatever radio stations would broadcast records or live performances.
As you stated, the NOLA influence, tied in with what was going on in Jamaica... there were musicians in Jamaica who loved jazz, and that in itself turned into ska. When a select amount of Jamaicans made it into the US, they brought their love of sounds not only from the region, but also some rhythms from Brazil. We tend to think that music didn't travel far, but the music back then truly traveled, and it can be heard throughout the influences.
There are more than enough articles about James Brown which talk about him spending a lot of time in Louisiana, hearing the musicians and wanting to incorporate elements of *that* sound into what he was doing. James Brown had crossed over with a few hits, but one can ask: did he want more pop success, or was he more than happy to give it to the people who cared for him more? That period between 1964-1966 can be heard as a bit of "rubbbing of the hands", to prepare for what was to come once 1967 came around.
In the rock/pop rock world, 1967 will be the year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of not only Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band[/b], but Piper At The Gates Of Dawn[/b], The Doors[/b], The Velvet Underground & Nico[/b], Are You Experienced?[/b], Surrealistic Pillow[/b], Grateful Dead[/b], and Disraeli Gears[/b]. Soul/R&B was still very much singles-oriented, and albums were still for the adults. Yet in 1967 there was the release of "Cold Sweat". I posted this over on the SH boards, but as indicated in the liner notes in the bookket for the Star Time[/b] box set:
No one really noticed the new brew until the summer, when the mind-blowing single "Cold Sweat" blasted through the hot air.
It was just rhythm - barely any chord changes - with jazz intervals in the horn section, dreamed up by (Pee Wee) Ellis while he shopped in a music store in downtown Cincinatti. It contained another first - a "give the drummer some" solo by Clyde Stubblefield. And it was shaped in the studio by Brown in only two takes.
""Cold Sweat" deeply affected the musicians I knew", said Jerry Wexler, who was then producing Aretha Franklin and other soul stars for Atlantic Records. "It just freaked them out. For a time, no one could get a handle on what to do next.""
Obviously, a lot of things influence an artist's music along the way. We can move three years or so later when James Brown went to Nigeria, and the band wanted to see Fela Kuti perform. Bootsy was sold and it seemed if there was a way for him to have left James to play with Fela, he could.
I just think that in soul and funk, the discussion of influences stop at a certain point because a lot of people weren't willing to talk, as if "the secret club" was going to be infested with devils. But for those who were willing to talk, we discover that much of James Brown's genius was very much due to the ingenuity of his musicians. Without them, he could have been Sammy Davis Jr.
With my neverending need to dig up the information that means the most, let's not forget the influence of the rats:
Well ya'll here is the story I heard about JB's Hammond B-3 & Leslie speaker cabinet (Hammond & Leslie are a brand name church organ used in funk, rock, and jazz music).
A friend of mine who repairs Hammond Organs in the New England area was called up for an emergency repair at a James Brown concert somewhere outside of Hartford, Connecticut. When he got to the gig it was obvious that the speaker cabinet wasn't working. The primary job for a Leslie speaker (besides reproducing sound) is to project the sound (rotating at diferent selected speeds) in a 360 degree patern, producing a "Doppler effect" or just plan old funky sound. This wasn't happening. So my friend opened up the speaker cabinet to see what was wrong. Upon opening the speaker the service technician noticed several rodents nests(which I will call rats nests) obstructing the movement of these rotating speakers. When the repairman pointed this out to the crew, they just responded that the speaker cabinet and organ had been sitting in James's studio gor ages and they never had any problem with it. Be that as it may I think it's safe to say that the coveted " ratty sounding B-3 " on James Brown records is just that. Well those rats had "the funk" and helped (inadvertently) shape the sound of funk as we know it. Thanks for your time.
Summary? Influences of the funk: * NOLA * Louis Jordan * Calypso rhythms and other influences from the Caribbean and Brazil, which did make its way into jazz in the 1950's and 1960's. * rats
But for those who were willing to talk, we discover that much of James Brown's genius was very much due to the ingenuity of his musicians. Without them, he could have been Sammy Davis Jr.
Comments
It had to have been, because he was spewing that same rhyme fifteen years later on James Brown's Live At The Apollo 1995 album.
yeah i noticed that crazy kick syncopation. this shit is a good 4 years ahead of its time...
Cot damn... that's my first time hearing this schitt too! DAMN. That's gotta be it right there... it's on the one like a muthafucka, it's funky, you can buss raps to it... that's it, that's the beginning of funk right there.
Sheeeeeeeeiiiiiit... you gots to SHOW me some funky beat schitt that came before this. I can't see there being anything else, but who knows... I didn't know about this damn record either.
Slow that schitt down, let Marley hook it up w/ the "Think" shakers and some scratches on the hook, let 1988 BDK rip it like he did on Wrath Of Kane...
Ask, receive.
(Note, I slowed it down about 70% but left the pitch the same).
I'm coming late into this thread, but this is exactly where it comes from. Before James Brown became a force, it was jazz and jazz musicians who did a lot of networking. They heard each other's records, jammed with each other after hours, and perhaps heard the music on whatever radio stations would broadcast records or live performances.
As you stated, the NOLA influence, tied in with what was going on in Jamaica... there were musicians in Jamaica who loved jazz, and that in itself turned into ska. When a select amount of Jamaicans made it into the US, they brought their love of sounds not only from the region, but also some rhythms from Brazil. We tend to think that music didn't travel far, but the music back then truly traveled, and it can be heard throughout the influences.
There are more than enough articles about James Brown which talk about him spending a lot of time in Louisiana, hearing the musicians and wanting to incorporate elements of *that* sound into what he was doing. James Brown had crossed over with a few hits, but one can ask: did he want more pop success, or was he more than happy to give it to the people who cared for him more? That period between 1964-1966 can be heard as a bit of "rubbbing of the hands", to prepare for what was to come once 1967 came around.
In the rock/pop rock world, 1967 will be the year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of not only Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band[/b], but Piper At The Gates Of Dawn[/b], The Doors[/b], The Velvet Underground & Nico[/b], Are You Experienced?[/b], Surrealistic Pillow[/b], Grateful Dead[/b], and Disraeli Gears[/b]. Soul/R&B was still very much singles-oriented, and albums were still for the adults. Yet in 1967 there was the release of "Cold Sweat". I posted this over on the SH boards, but as indicated in the liner notes in the bookket for the Star Time[/b] box set:
No one really noticed the new brew until the summer, when the mind-blowing single "Cold Sweat" blasted through the hot air.
It was just rhythm - barely any chord changes - with jazz intervals in the horn section, dreamed up by (Pee Wee) Ellis while he shopped in a music store in downtown Cincinatti. It contained another first - a "give the drummer some" solo by Clyde Stubblefield. And it was shaped in the studio by Brown in only two takes.
""Cold Sweat" deeply affected the musicians I knew", said Jerry Wexler, who was then producing Aretha Franklin and other soul stars for Atlantic Records. "It just freaked them out. For a time, no one could get a handle on what to do next.""
Obviously, a lot of things influence an artist's music along the way. We can move three years or so later when James Brown went to Nigeria, and the band wanted to see Fela Kuti perform. Bootsy was sold and it seemed if there was a way for him to have left James to play with Fela, he could.
I just think that in soul and funk, the discussion of influences stop at a certain point because a lot of people weren't willing to talk, as if "the secret club" was going to be infested with devils. But for those who were willing to talk, we discover that much of James Brown's genius was very much due to the ingenuity of his musicians. Without them, he could have been Sammy Davis Jr.
With my neverending need to dig up the information that means the most, let's not forget the influence of the rats:
Subject: James Brown's FUNKY sounding Hammond B-3
Date: 05/13/95 10:32 PM
Well ya'll here is the story I heard about JB's Hammond B-3 & Leslie speaker cabinet (Hammond & Leslie are a brand name church organ used in funk, rock, and jazz music).
A friend of mine who repairs Hammond Organs in the New England area was called up for an emergency repair at a James Brown concert somewhere outside of Hartford, Connecticut. When he got to the gig it was obvious that the speaker cabinet wasn't working. The primary job for a Leslie speaker (besides reproducing sound) is to project the sound (rotating at diferent selected speeds) in a 360 degree patern, producing a "Doppler effect" or just plan old funky sound. This wasn't happening. So my friend opened up the speaker cabinet to see what was wrong. Upon opening the
speaker the service technician noticed several rodents nests(which I will call rats nests) obstructing the movement of these rotating speakers. When the repairman pointed this out to the crew, they just responded that the speaker cabinet and organ had been sitting in James's studio gor ages and they never had any problem with it. Be that as it may I think it's safe to say that the coveted " ratty sounding B-3 " on James Brown records is just that. Well those rats had "the funk" and helped (inadvertently) shape the sound of funk as we know it. Thanks for your time.
Summary? Influences of the funk:
* NOLA
* Louis Jordan
* Calypso rhythms and other influences from the Caribbean and Brazil, which did make its way into jazz in the 1950's and 1960's.
* rats
Let's also not forget nappy dugouts.
This is why I'm here! YES!