Give Up the Funk Edition Part 2

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the ’70s, funk was pop—the cutting edge of Black music and the way listeners got their groove on, before disco and hip-hop. After James Brown taught a generation a new way to hear rhythm, and George Clinton tore the roof off with his P-Funk axis, nothing would be the same. Rising alongside blaxploitation at the movies, funk took many forms: Curtis Mayfield’s superfly storytelling. War’s low-riding grooves. Kool & the Gang’s jungle boogie. Earth, Wind and Fire’s jazzy crescendos. But when funk began fusing with rock and disco took over the charts, would these acts have to give up the funk? Join Chris Molanphy as he traces the history of funk’s first big decade. You’ll ride the mighty, mighty love rollercoaster and get down just for the funk of it. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Music
0:10.0	Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Sleet Magazine about
0:16.2	the hits from Coast to Coast.
0:18.2	I'm Chris Malanfe, Chart Analyst, Pop Critic, and writer of Sleets Why Is This Song No. 1
0:24.6	series on our last episode.
0:27.3	We talked about the rise of funk in the first half of the 1970s when the 60s innovations
0:34.8	of James Brown, Slice Stone, Isaac Hayes, and Parliament Funkadelic were taken up by
0:42.0	a rising generation of syncopated bands and soulful singers.
0:47.8	These acts from war to cool in the gang to the Ohio players saw their funky recordings
0:54.9	rise not just on the singles charts, but also the album chart.
1:00.6	As listeners across the musical spectrum enjoyed the tight rhythms and the sprawling jams.
1:07.7	We are now in the mid 70s when an eclectic combo called Earth Wind and Fire is about
1:15.8	to take over the charts and usher funk into the disco era.
1:23.8	A fun footnote about Earth Wind and Fire.
1:28.0	They recorded a black exploitation movie soundtrack even before Isaac Hayes or Curtis Mayfield.
1:36.8	They were the uncredited backing band to Melvin Van Peable's on the 1971 soundtrack to
1:45.0	the director's seminal film Sweet Sweet Back's Badass Song.
1:50.9	And zero for black exploitation.
1:53.9	Frankly, you can barely tell Earth Wind and Fire are playing on that soundtrack, which
2:01.2	all music calls, quote, serviceable period funk soul.
2:07.0	About the only telltale sign is when EWF leader Maurice White plays the Calimba, the African
2:15.7	style thumb piano.
	...

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