[ James ]
Brown
Jungle Funk
1974 — Rumble In The Jungle
“Funky President”
((( politics at home )))
—yZ.
Richard Pryor
“(Let Me) Out Of Africa”
LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP (1982)
WATTSTAX (1973)
James Joseph Brown — The Creator of Funk. “Mr. Dynamite”, “the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” and most memorably, “The Godfather of Soul.” In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986. His music has been heavily sampled by hip-hop musicians and other artists.
Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. He rose to prominence in the mid-1950s as the lead singer of The Famous Flames, a rhythm and blues vocal group founded by BOBBY BYRD. With the hit ballads “Please, Please, Please,“ and “Try Me,“ Brown built a reputation as a dynamic live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes known as the James Brown Band or the James Brown Orchestra. His success peaked in the 1960s with the live album Live at the Apollo, and hit singles such as “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,“ “I Got You (I Feel Good),” and “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
MILES and BETTY DAVIS
During the late 1960s, Brown moved from a continuum of blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a new approach to music-making, emphasizing stripped-down interlocking rhythms that influenced the development of funk music. By the early 1970s, Brown had fully established the funk sound after the formation of the J.B.s with records such as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” and (Lenny White’s Favorite) “The Payback.“ He also became noted for songs of social commentary, including the 1968 hit “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.“
Sly & The Family Stone
1971 — There’s A Riot Goin’ On
Complete Audio
((( Africa Talks To You )))
—yZ.
There’s a Riot Goin’ On is the fifth studio album by the American funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone. It was recorded from 1970 to 1971 at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California and released later that year on November 1 by Epic Records. The recording was dominated by band frontman/songwriter Sly Stone during a period of escalated drug use and intra-group tension.
With the album, Sly and the Family Stone departed from the optimistic sound of their previous music and explored a darker, more challenging sound featuring edgy funk rhythms, a primitive drum machine, extensive overdubbing, and a dense mix. Conceptually and lyrically, There’s a Riot Goin’ On embraced apathy, pessimism, and disillusionment with both Stone’s fame and 1960s counterculture amid a turbulent political climate in the United States at the turn of the 1970s, influenced by the decline of the civil rights movement and the rise of the Black Power movement. The album’s title was originally planned to be Africa Talks to You, but it changed in response to Marvin Gaye‘s album What’s Going On (1971), released six months before Riot.[8]
A commercial success, There’s a Riot Goin’ On topped the Billboard Pop Album and Soul Album charts, while its lead single “Family Affair“ reached number one on the Pop Singles chart.[9][10] The album was eventually certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of at least one million copies in the US.[11] Originally released to mixed reviews, the album has since been praised as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time, having impacted the funk, jazz-funk, and hip hop genres in particular. It has appeared in publications’ best-album lists, including Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time“, on which it placed 99th in 2003 and 82nd in 2020.
In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Sly Stone (arrangements, keyboards, vocals)
Billy Preston (keyboards)
Larry Graham (electric bass guitar, backing vocals)
Ike Turner (guitar)
Bobby Womack (guitar)
Freddie Stone (guitar)
Greg Errico (drums)
Gerry Gibson (drums)
Jerry Martini (tenor saxophone)
Cynthia Robinson (trumpet)
Rose Stone (vocals, keyboards)
Little Sister (backing vocals)