Various Artists
The Birth Of Funk
Low-down and dirty jazz goes right back to the early 1900s in Storyville; after the bands had played their hot tunes in the evening for dancing couples, the musicians would head off to the after-hours joints and play a less energetic but more bluesy kind of music, enabling them and their late-night audiences to get through to the early hours of the morning without suffering total exhaustion. And nobody in New Orleans laid into the blues so low down and dirty as Buddy Bolden, whose Funky Butt became a staple in the repertoire of the city's early jazz bands. Jacksonville, Florida, 1960. Charles Hungry Williams mentors young Clayton Fillyau after he had just joined the James Brown band: 'I don't care where you put it on those drums, remember where the '1' is and you'll never lose the time.' Listen to Hungry on Huey Smith's Talk To Me Baby and then listen to how Clayton turns it into a relentless breakbeat on James Brown s I've Got Money. Earl King's Trick Bag, prefiguring the Meters, is as good an example of early New Orleans funk as can be found. Not everything on here was cut in New Orleans. New York singer Vernon Harrel's Slick Chick is held together by an intriguingly syncopated bass line that hints at late '60s Studio One dub. And in case you think any of this was new, listen to Zutty Singleton's drum break on Victoria Spivey's Funny Feathers from 1929. Or Earl Palmer's sixteenth notes, off-backbeat snare accents and double-tempo hi-hats in 1953 on Professor Longhair's Tipitina and Who's Foolin' You. (Palmer was the very first to describe a syncopated beat as funky ).
Tracklist
1. Say Yeah Yeah - Yvonne Fair
2. Check Mr. Popeye - Eddie Bo
3. The Popeye - Spider Johnson
4. I'm Leaving You Today - Al Robinson
5. Say Yeah - Porgy & The Polka Dots
6. Talk To Me Baby - Huey 'Piano' Smith
7. Trick Bag - Earl King
8. What A Wedding Day - Shirley Raymond
9. R B Special - Bob Bateman
10. Tell Me The Truth - The Turquinettes
11. Slick Chick - Vernon Harrel
12. I've Got Money - James Brown
13. Hold It - Bill Doggett
14. Fat Boy - Billy Stewart
15. Mudd - Roy Montrell