Brown Introduces Funk

Cold Sweat

Welcome to awWFunk! We're going to start off your skunky, funky, pumpin' journey into this groovy wonderland with a trip back a time more groovy than now. The year is 1967. Lulu is at the top of billboards with To Sir With Love. Coming in at number two is Light My Fire by The Doors, but there was a phunknomenon that was about to descend upon the unsuspecting people that was the american music scene. The man was none other than up and coming RnB sensation James Brown. The song: Cold Sweat. Now cold sweat hits on something that the RnB, MoTown, Soul and Jazz of the time were creeping on, but never quite nailed. James Brown showed the singers, the musicians, and the song writers that "Hey! Here's how you boogie down!"

Now this track was sensational to say the least! The sound! It was the tight musicianship of jazz; the rhythm of RnB, and the power of soul tied up into one track that shot the fiery stank of love out of the speakers. From the day the vinyl was pressed, it was known that this track was fated to be used and abused until the groove had worn to nearly nothing, and even then it would be loved (just with the ear closer to the speaker)! This remained true even in later generations, as young kids armed with nothing but microphones, samplers, turntables, and their parents record collection began to sample whatever parts they could from this classic track. A quick Google search will yield an overwhelming amount of famous acts (Public Enemy, Sweet Tee, and King Tee ect.) guilty of taking loving nibbles from James' 67' #1 RnB Billboard hit. In fact James Browns' new found sound would go on to make such a cultural impact, that people founded (along with Jamaican Dub) a new "cultural powerhouse" of a genre based on building new songs out of his songs! In short, James Brown started a musical phenomenon that would quickly embed itself in to the soul of american music. Just as its predecessors Jazz, Blues, and Rag Time had done before, Funk came in and re-invoked a type of irresistible teenage passion.  

The term Funk is the perfect name for the genre. It being focused on the young African American population fighting for equal treatment within America at the same time, calling it Funk was a way of escaping oppression and prejudice and sticking it to the conservative whites, saying "Yes we are in a 'funk', and this is how groovy it sounds."