Make It Funky

Soul & Funk in the Sixties

Sam Cooke: A Crossover Artist

Sam Cooke bio

• B. 1931 in Mississippi, grew up Chicago• Joined popular black gospel quartet The Soul

Stirrers in 1950• Records ‘You Send Me’ in 1957, becomes #1 hit• After hearing Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the wind’,

writes ‘A change is gonna come’, referring to the civil rights movement (recorded in 1964)

• Shot to death in 1964, 200,000 attend funeral

People Get Ready

Curtis Mayfield

• B. Chicago 1942, d. 1999.• Lead singer for The Impressions, multi-

instrumentalist, major songwriter• Later wrote soundtrack for blaxploitation

movie Superfly

Motown Records

• Founded by Berry Gordy in 1960• Brilliant entrepreneur, on of most successful

black-owned corporations in history• Name from Mo(tor) + Town. Detroit= Motor

City, capital of automakers• Ground-breaking arrangements by talented

unidentified studio musicians, who would influence later developments: funk, jazz-rock etc.

Little Stevie Wonder

Fingertips part 2

• N° 1 hit. Little Stevie only 12• Another hit with ‘Uptight’, with narrative

about a poor man’s son born on the wrong side of the tracks, trying to make it with a girl of higher social status

• This social awareness would be more fully expressed in his 1970s albums

The Motown Sound

I got sunshine on a cloudy day

Reach Out

The Supremes (Diana Ross on right)

Stax (Memphis)

Stax

• Founded by Jim Stewart & sister Estelle Axton, two white business people

• Center for Southern soul with great integrated team of studio musicians, guitarist Steve Cropper, Booker T Jones & the MGs,

• Cf. The Blues Brothers

Otis Redding

• b. Georgia, 1941, father gospel singer• Sang in Baptist church choir, infl. by Sam

Cooke & Little Richard• Recorded for Stax in 1964• Sitting on the Dock of the Bay recorded 3 days

before tragic plane crash, Dec. 10, 1967 & became posthumous n° 1 hit

Aretha

• B. 1942, Memphis, moved to Detroit when 6• Father prominent Baptist minister• Began career singing in church• Recasts O. Redding’s version of ‘Respect’

affirming woman’s perspective, becomes a symbol of feminist movement. Producer Jerry Wexler: ‘overtones of civil-rights movement and gender equality…an appeal to dignity’

• TCB: Taking care of business

Soul Brother N° 1

James Brown

• b. S. Carolina, 1933, d. 2006• Sings with gospel group in 50s, records R & B

hit ‘Please Please Please’ with Famous Flames, sells > 1 m. in 1956

• Commercial breakthrough on pop charts in 60s: Night Train (instrumental), Papa’s Got a Brand new bag 1965

• Cold Sweat, 1967, considered early funk classic. Say It Loud… black power anthem

What is it good for?

Sly & the Family Stone

• San Francisco psychedelic rock, soul, funk band founded in 1967 by brothers Sly & Freddie Stone

• Everyday People released in late ‘68, became n° 1 hit

• Famous performance of ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ at Woodstock festival

The Last Poets

• Formed in East Harlem by black poets in 1968• Rap style, major influence on hip-hop

movement