Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - Give Up the Funk Edition Part 1
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2022
⏱️ 49 minutes
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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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening Ad-Free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.5 | Hey there, hit parade listeners. |
| 0:06.1 | What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. |
| 0:09.7 | Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. |
| 0:13.5 | Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? |
| 0:17.3 | Sign up for Slate Plus. |
| 0:18.8 | It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. |
| 0:25.0 | Just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus. |
| 0:28.5 | You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives. |
| 0:33.1 | Plus, hit parade The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode |
| 0:39.8 | topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hitparade plus. Thanks. |
| 0:47.7 | And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. |
| 1:01.5 | Thank you. one of this Hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from |
| 1:08.1 | coast to coast. |
| 1:09.3 | I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why is the song number |
| 1:14.4 | one series. |
| 1:15.7 | On today's show, 50 years ago, this month, the number one album in America was a smooth, sinuous |
| 1:23.6 | slice of uncut funk. |
| 1:26.2 | It was a soundtrack LP, but also an auturist album in its own right, by a man already |
| 1:34.2 | regarded as a soul legend, Curtis Mayfield. |
| 1:38.5 | You're going to make your fetching by and buy but if you lose |
| 1:46.1 | don't ask no questions why the only superfly from the Gordon |
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