Latest news with #OhioPlayers
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Black Keys Detail New LP, ‘No Rain, No Flowers'
The Black Keys have landed on an Aug. 8 release date for their 13th album, No Rain, No Flowers, the title track from which is out now. Among the collaborators on the self-produced Easy Eye Sound/Warner project are songwriters Rick Nowels and Daniel Tashian, plus veteran hip-hop producer/keyboardist Scott Storch. Black Keys guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach previously told SPIN that he and bandmate Patrick Carney used to obsessively watch YouTube videos of Storch 'playing all his parts from his productions on piano. He showed up and he was so excited to be in the studio because it's filled with keyboards here. He said he'd never really recorded with real instruments before — like harpsichords, vibes, tack pianos and stuff. So, he was like a kid in a candy shop. We hit it off and we had a lot of fun.' More from Spin: Peter Baumann's Old and New Dreams GIRLS IN WAITING Prince Royce: 'With Music, We Can Become One' The album's first single, 'The Night Before,' emerged as Carney, Auerbach and Tashian played drums, guitar and bass in a circle at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound studio. 'It came together so quickly that we overlooked it,' said Auerbach. 'When we were playing the songs we had for people, it was the very last one we played to the record label. As soon as we played it, everyone unanimously said that should be the first single.' No Rain, No Flowers amounts to some positive fallout surrounding the release of 2024's Ohio Players and the abrupt cancelation of its supporting tour, during which Auerbach and Carney traded barbs with former manager Irving Azoff. 'We put a lot of time into [that] album, and then it came out and some bullshit happened and we had to pivot,' said Carney. 'Som we pivoted to where we feel most comfortable, which is back in the studio — make more music and just do it again.' The Black Keys will be on the road in North America beginning May 23 in Durant, Ok., and have dates on the books through Sept. 20 at Atlanta's Shaky Knees festival. 'The fact we didn't get to tour last year, we hated it,' Carney admitted. 'It sucks for us, sucks for the fans. Also, the circumstances were bullshit. But at the end of the day, we did get to make another album. And it's something that we're proud of, and that will be a document that will exist long after we're gone.' To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
CNN
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
What happened to the funk?
If there was a Mount Funkmore for the greatest funk bassists, Marcus Miller's face and trademark porkpie hat would be sculpted into that musical monument. Miller honed his musical chops during funk's '70s golden age when songs from groups like the Ohio Players and Parliament pumped from speakers in dorm rooms, high school dances and 'blue light in the basement' house parties. It was a time when funk music became 'the chocolate-colored soundtrack to a golden age of music,' the cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales once wrote. 'There's no sad funk songs,' says Miller, now 65. 'Funk's primary purpose is to get people moving, dancing and shaking their behinds.' Funk music's purpose is likely not high on the list of concerns for most Americans in 2025. Most people are worrying more about the plunging stock market, rising egg prices, job layoffs and political polarization. But when I think about what ails contemporary America, I consider this question: What happened to the funk? I ask this because I also grew up during funk's golden era. I watched live performances of groups like Earth Wind & Fire as they drove crowds to a funk frenzy. I studied 'Soul Train' every weekend to catch the latest dance moves that I could never learn. I never purchased an Afro-Sheen blowout kit to look like my favorite funk performers, but I proudly carried an Afro pick with a handle shaped like a clenched Black fist to capture their defiant 'Get the Funk Out Ma Face' attitude. For my family and friends, funk wasn't just a musical genre — it was a lifestyle and attitude built around what one music critic called 'sweat and sociability.' And then the music lost its groove. The '80s and '90s brought hip hop, grunge, rap and alternative rock. Today's charts are dominated by plastic dance pop that feels like it's been assembled by an AI bot. I can't help but wonder: Why did funk music lose its popularity? And did we lose something more than danceable rhythms when it went away? That's the unspoken question that hovers in the background of a new documentary: 'We Want the Funk!,' premiering tonight on PBS, which takes listeners on a fantastic voyage to trace the birth and evolution of funk. Directed by two Emmy-award-winning filmmakers, Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, the film features Miller and other funk royalty such as George Clinton, leader of the Parliament and Funkadelic groups, plus members of classic funk groups like the Ohio Players, famous for their erotic album covers. The film traces the birth of funk music to one person: James Brown. The Godfather of Soul, who once said, 'I've only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk,' pioneered the genre in the mid-1960s with songs like 'I Got You (I Feel Good),' and 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.' Brown's stripped-down music was filled with syncopated drums, propulsive bass lines and fiery horn sections that seemed to spit fire. Brown's funkiness was irrepressible, Clinton says in the film. 'Even if he sang the Star-Spangled Banner, it was going to be funky,' Clinton says. But while funk may have started with an individual performer, its sound was all about community. Funk's biggest acts were ensembles. As a kid, I sometimes wondered how funk groups like Lakeside even fit all their members on their album covers. Miller, whose comment about no sad funk songs appears in the film, tells me that he grew up in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York, where every block seemed to have a funk band. Making a band click took work, he says. Rehearsal was constant, and so were the arguments. The goal was to sound 'tight,' Miller says, meaning that all the vocal harmonizations, dance moves and instruments meshed seamlessly. When it all came together during a live performance, the struggle was worth it, Miller says. 'There's nothing like seeing human beings come together to work something out as a group,' Miller tells me. 'It's like a championship basketball team. Everybody plays the hell out of their role. They've figured out how to work together and resolve their disagreements.' That communal bliss was transmitted to the audience. When I watch vintage concert footage today of groups like the Brothers Johnson performing songs like 'Stomp,' I'm struck by the camaraderie instilled in the audience. It reminds me of that warm glow I experienced in the Charismatic Christian church I attended as a kid, when the songs reached a fever pitch and Black folks stood, sang and shouted together. The lyrical emphasis in funk songs like 'Stomp' was often on 'we,' not 'I.' ('Everybody take it to the top/We're gonna' stomp all night/In the neighborhood/Don't it feel alright?') Funk music is not meant to be listened to alone, London, co-director of 'We Want the Funk,' tells me. 'It's like a religious experience that has to be shared with others,' she says. 'It's a channeling that happens when people are together in a groove. There's something that, as Sly and the Family Stone sings, 'takes you higher.' '' Funk music also took us higher back then because of a quality that's missing today from popular music — a sense of racial optimism. Because many of the biggest funk bands were interracial ensembles, that optimism was reflected in groups like Sly & the Family Stone, which presented a stage full of White, Black and Brown musicians all moving together in harmony. Funk music brought White and Black America together in a way that our politics never could. 'Sly & the Family Stone was the musical equivalent of 'I Have a Dream,' ' the drummer and producer Questlove says in the PBS film. As a young man, seeing interracial funk groups meant more to me than I realized. I grew up in a segregated Black community in West Baltimore where most people viewed White people with hostility. I also came from a family where all my White relatives, except my mom, disowned me at birth because my father was Black. It's hard not to develop stereotypes about White people in such a setting. But when I saw Black and White people shaking their rumps together to songs like KC and the Sunshine Band's '(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,' it gave me my first glimpse of a larger world where we could work out our racial differences. Not all White people are the same, I thought. Funk music did what DEI is supposed to do today: It broke down racial walls. Sometimes those walls didn't fall so easy. That was the case when it came to a perennial debate in music: Do White people have as much soul and funk as Black people? I used to believe they didn't. But then in junior high school my world was rocked by one man: Bobby Caldwell. In 1978, Caldwell released a slow-jam funk anthem that earned him a free pass to all Black cookouts: 'What You Won't Do For Love.' The song, which is inspired by Earth Wing & Fire's horn section, is a sophisticated fusion of the best of funk: a chugging rhythm guitar, horns and a head-bopping, bite-your-lower-lip bass groove. What sends it over the top is Caldwell's impassioned vocals ('I came back to let you know/Got a thing for you and I can't let it go'). The song quickly became a staple on Black radio stations. When it came out, I looked in vain for pictures of this soulful new Black singer, but his record company didn't show his photo. When Black folks went to concert venues to hear Caldwell sing, they discovered why — he was a skinny, bearded White man who, according to one stunned Black fan, 'looked like Indiana Jones.' One Black comedian, Kevin Fredericks, said he experienced so much cognitive dissonance upon seeing Caldwell sing that 'I called out of work today. I don't even know who I am anymore.' It turned out Caldwell was just one of many White artists who had earned their doctorates in funk. Another, Wild Cherry, was an all-White band that had a monster funk hit in 1976 called 'Play That Funky Music.' I still remember the sudden silence and furrowed brows from my friends when we watched them on TV. Then there was the shock of learning that arguably funk music's greatest instrumental, 'Pick up the Pieces,' was created by a group of White musicians from Scotland. Maybe I should have taken the cue from their name: the Average White Band. There was an implicit message in these White and interracial funk groups for me: Here were White people stepping into our world to let us know that our culture mattered. For brief moments onstage, it seemed like we could work out our racial divisions. We were, as the Funkadelic hit declared, 'one nation under a groove.' But then, somewhere in the 1980s, we lost the funk. Although elements of funk showed up in songs like Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean,' the genre lost its widespread popularity. How could this happen to such a visceral, joyous style of music? It's a mystery that people still debate today. Some say it's partly because the Reagan administration pulled funding to musical education programs in public schools. Kids didn't learn how to play instruments anymore, so they turned to rap and hip-hop. Others say it came down to business. It didn't make economic sense anymore for record companies to sign bands. This is the perspective of Rick Beato, the music producer and host of the popular 'Everything Music' YouTube channel. Beato released a video last year asking, 'Why are bands mysteriously disappearing?' His conclusion: It's far cheaper now for a record label to work with and promote a solo artist. Technology also has killed bands, he says. 'A solo artist can record a song at their house on their laptop, put it on TikTok and it becomes a massive hit,' Beato says. Miller, the bassist, has had to adjust. To avoid being trapped in a funk cul-de-sac, he's branched out to compose music for film and TV. He's also a prolific collaborator with jazz and pop artists. When asked if funk bands will ever return to their bell-bottomed glory, he is skeptical. 'Imagine if you're a kid who is 12 and somebody says to you, 'You can play this saxophone, but you have to practice at least three hours a day for many years to make a wonderful sound,'' Miller says. 'Or you can go to an Apple store, buy a laptop and you can find the right software to have control of every sound.' But there's a deeper reason why we've lost the funk. We've lost the communal spirit that feeds funk music. We've gone from a 'We' to an 'I' society. That's how Robert D. Putnam, the eminent sociologist who wrote 'Bowling Alone,' describes this shift. Americans were once a nation of joiners who participated in groups like the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club and bowling leagues. Today we've become a nation of loners. There's been a surge in Americans who eat their meals alone, at home and in restaurants. We drive around in cars with tinted windows that separate us from the world. Technology has reinforced this social isolation. Many of us interact with screens more than with one another. I'm continually puzzled by people who go to coffee shops to be around other people — and then ignore them by sitting alone in silence, pecking away at their keyboards. This loneliness infects our music. When I pull up next to young people's 'hoopty' cars at stoplights in Atlanta I now hear snippets from a musical wasteland: bland singers who can't hit notes without Auto-Tune, musicians who can't play instruments, and synthetic, overproduced music that sounds like it was sprayed from an aerosol can. Today's pop artists don't seem like they're really listening to one another. Why should I listen to them? I get my funk fix today by going to YouTube and watching old concert footage of funk groups. Many of these videos rack up millions of views. I don't believe all of those viewers are 'turn that music down!' old folks like me. There must also be young people looking for a glimpse of the musical craftsmanship and communal joy that I took for granted as a kid. It's hard for funk to flower in a nation of fearful, isolated people. And yet somehow it still does. Elements of funk music persist in hip-hop, contemporary jazz and in school marching bands. 'Uptown Funk,' the 2014 hit by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, is a prominent example of funk's enduring appeal. Funk bands no longer rule the radio, but their influence is still felt around the globe. Cover bands from as far away as Russia and Australia play funk classics, and one of the most inventive funk dance routines I've ever seen comes from a Japanese choreographer named Moga. She put together a viral dance routine based on a James Brown song that is electric. Funk doesn't just belong to Black people; it speaks to everyone. That's the hope I hold onto now. The need to sing and dance together is as ancient as the earliest humans who played drums and chanted around campfires. No matter our race, age or political beliefs, we all want the funk – even if we don't know it. It's the kind of music human beings will always have a thing for. And thankfully, we can't quite let it go. John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, 'More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.'
CNN
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
What happened to the funk?
If there was a Mount Funkmore for the greatest funk bassists, Marcus Miller's face and trademark porkpie hat would be sculpted into that musical monument. Miller honed his musical chops during funk's '70s golden age when songs from groups like the Ohio Players and Parliament pumped from speakers in dorm rooms, high school dances and 'blue light in the basement' house parties. It was a time when funk music became 'the chocolate-colored soundtrack to a golden age of music,' the cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales once wrote. 'There's no sad funk songs,' says Miller, now 65. 'Funk's primary purpose is to get people moving, dancing and shaking their behinds.' Funk music's purpose is likely not high on the list of concerns for most Americans in 2025. Most people are worrying more about the plunging stock market, rising egg prices, job layoffs and political polarization. But when I think about what ails contemporary America, I consider this question: What happened to the funk? I ask this because I also grew up during funk's golden era. I watched live performances of groups like Earth Wind & Fire as they drove crowds to a funk frenzy. I studied 'Soul Train' every weekend to catch the latest dance moves that I could never learn. I never purchased an Afro-Sheen blowout kit to look like my favorite funk performers, but I proudly carried an Afro pick with a handle shaped like a clenched Black fist to capture their defiant 'Get the Funk Out Ma Face' attitude. For my family and friends, funk wasn't just a musical genre — it was a lifestyle and attitude built around what one music critic called 'sweat and sociability.' And then the music lost its groove. The '80s and '90s brought hip hop, grunge, rap and alternative rock. Today's charts are dominated by plastic dance pop that feels like it's been assembled by an AI bot. I can't help but wonder: Why did funk music lose its popularity? And did we lose something more than danceable rhythms when it went away? That's the unspoken question that hovers in the background of a new documentary: 'We Want the Funk!,' premiering tonight on PBS, which takes listeners on a fantastic voyage to trace the birth and evolution of funk. Directed by two Emmy-award-winning filmmakers, Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, the film features Miller and other funk royalty such as George Clinton, leader of the Parliament and Funkadelic groups, plus members of classic funk groups like the Ohio Players, famous for their erotic album covers. The film traces the birth of funk music to one person: James Brown. The Godfather of Soul, who once said, 'I've only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk,' pioneered the genre in the mid-1960s with songs like 'I Got You (I Feel Good),' and 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.' Brown's stripped-down music was filled with syncopated drums, propulsive bass lines and fiery horn sections that seemed to spit fire. Brown's funkiness was irrepressible, Clinton says in the film. 'Even if he sang the Star-Spangled Banner, it was going to be funky,' Clinton says. But while funk may have started with an individual performer, its sound was all about community. Funk's biggest acts were ensembles. As a kid, I sometimes wondered how funk groups like Lakeside even fit all their members on their album covers. Miller, whose comment about no sad funk songs appears in the film, tells me that he grew up in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York, where every block seemed to have a funk band. Making a band click took work, he says. Rehearsal was constant, and so were the arguments. The goal was to sound 'tight,' Miller says, meaning that all the vocal harmonizations, dance moves and instruments meshed seamlessly. When it all came together during a live performance, the struggle was worth it, Miller says. 'There's nothing like seeing human beings come together to work something out as a group,' Miller tells me. 'It's like a championship basketball team. Everybody plays the hell out of their role. They've figured out how to work together and resolve their disagreements.' That communal bliss was transmitted to the audience. When I watch vintage concert footage today of groups like the Brothers Johnson performing songs like 'Stomp,' I'm struck by the camaraderie instilled in the audience. It reminds me of that warm glow I experienced in the Charismatic Christian church I attended as a kid, when the songs reached a fever pitch and Black folks stood, sang and shouted together. The lyrical emphasis in funk songs like 'Stomp' was often on 'we,' not 'I.' ('Everybody take it to the top/We're gonna' stomp all night/In the neighborhood/Don't it feel alright?') Funk music is not meant to be listened to alone, London, co-director of 'We Want the Funk,' tells me. 'It's like a religious experience that has to be shared with others,' she says. 'It's a channeling that happens when people are together in a groove. There's something that, as Sly and the Family Stone sings, 'takes you higher.' '' Funk music also took us higher back then because of a quality that's missing today from popular music — a sense of racial optimism. Because many of the biggest funk bands were interracial ensembles, that optimism was reflected in groups like Sly & the Family Stone, which presented a stage full of White, Black and Brown musicians all moving together in harmony. Funk music brought White and Black America together in a way that our politics never could. 'Sly & the Family Stone was the musical equivalent of 'I Have a Dream,' ' the drummer and producer Questlove says in the PBS film. As a young man, seeing interracial funk groups meant more to me than I realized. I grew up in a segregated Black community in West Baltimore where most people viewed White people with hostility. I also came from a family where all my White relatives, except my mom, disowned me at birth because my father was Black. It's hard not to develop stereotypes about White people in such a setting. But when I saw Black and White people shaking their rumps together to songs like KC and the Sunshine Band's '(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,' it gave me my first glimpse of a larger world where we could work out our racial differences. Not all White people are the same, I thought. Funk music did what DEI is supposed to do today: It broke down racial walls. Sometimes those walls didn't fall so easy. That was the case when it came to a perennial debate in music: Do White people have as much soul and funk as Black people? I used to believe they didn't. But then in junior high school my world was rocked by one man: Bobby Caldwell. In 1978, Caldwell released a slow-jam funk anthem that earned him a free pass to all Black cookouts: 'What You Won't Do For Love.' The song, which is inspired by Earth Wing & Fire's horn section, is a sophisticated fusion of the best of funk: a chugging rhythm guitar, horns and a head-bopping, bite-your-lower-lip bass groove. What sends it over the top is Caldwell's impassioned vocals ('I came back to let you know/Got a thing for you and I can't let it go'). The song quickly became a staple on Black radio stations. When it came out, I looked in vain for pictures of this soulful new Black singer, but his record company didn't show his photo. When Black folks went to concert venues to hear Caldwell sing, they discovered why — he was a skinny, bearded White man who, according to one stunned Black fan, 'looked like Indiana Jones.' One Black comedian, Kevin Fredericks, said he experienced so much cognitive dissonance upon seeing Caldwell sing that 'I called out of work today. I don't even know who I am anymore.' It turned out Caldwell was just one of many White artists who had earned their doctorates in funk. Another, Wild Cherry, was an all-White band that had a monster funk hit in 1976 called 'Play That Funky Music.' I still remember the sudden silence and furrowed brows from my friends when we watched them on TV. Then there was the shock of learning that arguably funk music's greatest instrumental, 'Pick up the Pieces,' was created by a group of White musicians from Scotland. Maybe I should have taken the cue from their name: the Average White Band. There was an implicit message in these White and interracial funk groups for me: Here were White people stepping into our world to let us know that our culture mattered. For brief moments onstage, it seemed like we could work out our racial divisions. We were, as the Funkadelic hit declared, 'one nation under a groove.' But then, somewhere in the 1980s, we lost the funk. Although elements of funk showed up in songs like Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean,' the genre lost its widespread popularity. How could this happen to such a visceral, joyous style of music? It's a mystery that people still debate today. Some say it's partly because the Reagan administration pulled funding to musical education programs in public schools. Kids didn't learn how to play instruments anymore, so they turned to rap and hip-hop. Others say it came down to business. It didn't make economic sense anymore for record companies to sign bands. This is the perspective of Rick Beato, the music producer and host of the popular 'Everything Music' YouTube channel. Beato released a video last year asking, 'Why are bands mysteriously disappearing?' His conclusion: It's far cheaper now for a record label to work with and promote a solo artist. Technology also has killed bands, he says. 'A solo artist can record a song at their house on their laptop, put it on TikTok and it becomes a massive hit,' Beato says. Miller, the bassist, has had to adjust. To avoid being trapped in a funk cul-de-sac, he's branched out to compose music for film and TV. He's also a prolific collaborator with jazz and pop artists. When asked if funk bands will ever return to their bell-bottomed glory, he is skeptical. 'Imagine if you're a kid who is 12 and somebody says to you, 'You can play this saxophone, but you have to practice at least three hours a day for many years to make a wonderful sound,'' Miller says. 'Or you can go to an Apple store, buy a laptop and you can find the right software to have control of every sound.' But there's a deeper reason why we've lost the funk. We've lost the communal spirit that feeds funk music. We've gone from a 'We' to an 'I' society. That's how Robert D. Putnam, the eminent sociologist who wrote 'Bowling Alone,' describes this shift. Americans were once a nation of joiners who participated in groups like the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club and bowling leagues. Today we've become a nation of loners. There's been a surge in Americans who eat their meals alone, at home and in restaurants. We drive around in cars with tinted windows that separate us from the world. Technology has reinforced this social isolation. Many of us interact with screens more than with one another. I'm continually puzzled by people who go to coffee shops to be around other people — and then ignore them by sitting alone in silence, pecking away at their keyboards. This loneliness infects our music. When I pull up next to young people's 'hoopty' cars at stoplights in Atlanta I now hear snippets from a musical wasteland: bland singers who can't hit notes without Auto-Tune, musicians who can't play instruments, and synthetic, overproduced music that sounds like it was sprayed from an aerosol can. Today's pop artists don't seem like they're really listening to one another. Why should I listen to them? I get my funk fix today by going to YouTube and watching old concert footage of funk groups. Many of these videos rack up millions of views. I don't believe all of those viewers are 'turn that music down!' old folks like me. There must also be young people looking for a glimpse of the musical craftsmanship and communal joy that I took for granted as a kid. It's hard for funk to flower in a nation of fearful, isolated people. And yet somehow it still does. Elements of funk music persist in hip-hop, contemporary jazz and in school marching bands. 'Uptown Funk,' the 2014 hit by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, is a prominent example of funk's enduring appeal. Funk bands no longer rule the radio, but their influence is still felt around the globe. Cover bands from as far away as Russia and Australia play funk classics, and one of the most inventive funk dance routines I've ever seen comes from a Japanese choreographer named Moga. She put together a viral dance routine based on a James Brown song that is electric. Funk doesn't just belong to Black people; it speaks to everyone. That's the hope I hold onto now. The need to sing and dance together is as ancient as the earliest humans who played drums and chanted around campfires. No matter our race, age or political beliefs, we all want the funk – even if we don't know it. It's the kind of music human beings will always have a thing for. And thankfully, we can't quite let it go. John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, 'More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.'
CNN
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
What happened to the funk?
If there was a Mount Funkmore for the greatest funk bassists, Marcus Miller's face and trademark porkpie hat would be sculpted into that musical monument. Miller honed his musical chops during funk's '70s golden age when songs from groups like the Ohio Players and Parliament pumped from speakers in dorm rooms, high school dances and 'blue light in the basement' house parties. It was a time when funk music became 'the chocolate-colored soundtrack to a golden age of music,' the cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales once wrote. 'There's no sad funk songs,' says Miller, now 65. 'Funk's primary purpose is to get people moving, dancing and shaking their behinds.' Funk music's purpose is likely not high on the list of concerns for most Americans in 2025. Most people are worrying more about the plunging stock market, rising egg prices, job layoffs and political polarization. But when I think about what ails contemporary America, I consider this question: What happened to the funk? I ask this because I also grew up during funk's golden era. I watched live performances of groups like Earth Wind & Fire as they drove crowds to a funk frenzy. I studied 'Soul Train' every weekend to catch the latest dance moves that I could never learn. I never purchased an Afro-Sheen blowout kit to look like my favorite funk performers, but I proudly carried an Afro pick with a handle shaped like a clenched Black fist to capture their defiant 'Get the Funk Out Ma Face' attitude. For my family and friends, funk wasn't just a musical genre — it was a lifestyle and attitude built around what one music critic called 'sweat and sociability.' And then the music lost its groove. The '80s and '90s brought hip hop, grunge, rap and alternative rock. Today's charts are dominated by plastic dance pop that feels like it's been assembled by an AI bot. I can't help but wonder: Why did funk music lose its popularity? And did we lose something more than danceable rhythms when it went away? That's the unspoken question that hovers in the background of a new documentary: 'We Want the Funk!,' premiering tonight on PBS, which takes listeners on a fantastic voyage to trace the birth and evolution of funk. Directed by two Emmy-award-winning filmmakers, Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, the film features Miller and other funk royalty such as George Clinton, leader of the Parliament and Funkadelic groups, plus members of classic funk groups like the Ohio Players, famous for their erotic album covers. The film traces the birth of funk music to one person: James Brown. The Godfather of Soul, who once said, 'I've only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk,' pioneered the genre in the mid-1960s with songs like 'I Got You (I Feel Good),' and 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.' Brown's stripped-down music was filled with syncopated drums, propulsive bass lines and fiery horn sections that seemed to spit fire. Brown's funkiness was irrepressible, Clinton says in the film. 'Even if he sang the Star-Spangled Banner, it was going to be funky,' Clinton says. But while funk may have started with an individual performer, its sound was all about community. Funk's biggest acts were ensembles. As a kid, I sometimes wondered how funk groups like Lakeside even fit all their members on their album covers. Miller, whose comment about no sad funk songs appears in the film, tells me that he grew up in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York, where every block seemed to have a funk band. Making a band click took work, he says. Rehearsal was constant, and so were the arguments. The goal was to sound 'tight,' Miller says, meaning that all the vocal harmonizations, dance moves and instruments meshed seamlessly. When it all came together during a live performance, the struggle was worth it, Miller says. 'There's nothing like seeing human beings come together to work something out as a group,' Miller tells me. 'It's like a championship basketball team. Everybody plays the hell out of their role. They've figured out how to work together and resolve their disagreements.' That communal bliss was transmitted to the audience. When I watch vintage concert footage today of groups like the Brothers Johnson performing songs like 'Stomp,' I'm struck by the camaraderie instilled in the audience. It reminds me of that warm glow I experienced in the Charismatic Christian church I attended as a kid, when the songs reached a fever pitch and Black folks stood, sang and shouted together. The lyrical emphasis in funk songs like 'Stomp' was often on 'we,' not 'I.' ('Everybody take it to the top/We're gonna' stomp all night/In the neighborhood/Don't it feel alright?') Funk music is not meant to be listened to alone, London, co-director of 'We Want the Funk,' tells me. 'It's like a religious experience that has to be shared with others,' she says. 'It's a channeling that happens when people are together in a groove. There's something that, as Sly and the Family Stone sings, 'takes you higher.' '' Funk music also took us higher back then because of a quality that's missing today from popular music — a sense of racial optimism. Because many of the biggest funk bands were interracial ensembles, that optimism was reflected in groups like Sly & the Family Stone, which presented a stage full of White, Black and Brown musicians all moving together in harmony. Funk music brought White and Black America together in a way that our politics never could. 'Sly & the Family Stone was the musical equivalent of 'I Have a Dream,' ' the drummer and producer Questlove says in the PBS film. As a young man, seeing interracial funk groups meant more to me than I realized. I grew up in a segregated Black community in West Baltimore where most people viewed White people with hostility. I also came from a family where all my White relatives, except my mom, disowned me at birth because my father was Black. It's hard not to develop stereotypes about White people in such a setting. But when I saw Black and White people shaking their rumps together to songs like KC and the Sunshine Band's '(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,' it gave me my first glimpse of a larger world where we could work out our racial differences. Not all White people are the same, I thought. Funk music did what DEI is supposed to do today: It broke down racial walls. Sometimes those walls didn't fall so easy. That was the case when it came to a perennial debate in music: Do White people have as much soul and funk as Black people? I used to believe they didn't. But then in junior high school my world was rocked by one man: Bobby Caldwell. In 1978, Caldwell released a slow-jam funk anthem that earned him a free pass to all Black cookouts: 'What You Won't Do For Love.' The song, which is inspired by Earth Wing & Fire's horn section, is a sophisticated fusion of the best of funk: a chugging rhythm guitar, horns and a head-bopping, bite-your-lower-lip bass groove. What sends it over the top is Caldwell's impassioned vocals ('I came back to let you know/Got a thing for you and I can't let it go'). The song quickly became a staple on Black radio stations. When it came out, I looked in vain for pictures of this soulful new Black singer, but his record company didn't show his photo. When Black folks went to concert venues to hear Caldwell sing, they discovered why — he was a skinny, bearded White man who, according to one stunned Black fan, 'looked like Indiana Jones.' One Black comedian, Kevin Fredericks, said he experienced so much cognitive dissonance upon seeing Caldwell sing that 'I called out of work today. I don't even know who I am anymore.' It turned out Caldwell was just one of many White artists who had earned their doctorates in funk. Another, Wild Cherry, was an all-White band that had a monster funk hit in 1976 called 'Play That Funky Music.' I still remember the sudden silence and furrowed brows from my friends when we watched them on TV. Then there was the shock of learning that arguably funk music's greatest instrumental, 'Pick up the Pieces,' was created by a group of White musicians from Scotland. Maybe I should have taken the cue from their name: the Average White Band. There was an implicit message in these White and interracial funk groups for me: Here were White people stepping into our world to let us know that our culture mattered. For brief moments onstage, it seemed like we could work out our racial divisions. We were, as the Funkadelic hit declared, 'one nation under a groove.' But then, somewhere in the 1980s, we lost the funk. Although elements of funk showed up in songs like Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean,' the genre lost its widespread popularity. How could this happen to such a visceral, joyous style of music? It's a mystery that people still debate today. Some say it's partly because the Reagan administration pulled funding to musical education programs in public schools. Kids didn't learn how to play instruments anymore, so they turned to rap and hip-hop. Others say it came down to business. It didn't make economic sense anymore for record companies to sign bands. This is the perspective of Rick Beato, the music producer and host of the popular 'Everything Music' YouTube channel. Beato released a video last year asking, 'Why are bands mysteriously disappearing?' His conclusion: It's far cheaper now for a record label to work with and promote a solo artist. Technology also has killed bands, he says. 'A solo artist can record a song at their house on their laptop, put it on TikTok and it becomes a massive hit,' Beato says. Miller, the bassist, has had to adjust. To avoid being trapped in a funk cul-de-sac, he's branched out to compose music for film and TV. He's also a prolific collaborator with jazz and pop artists. When asked if funk bands will ever return to their bell-bottomed glory, he is skeptical. 'Imagine if you're a kid who is 12 and somebody says to you, 'You can play this saxophone, but you have to practice at least three hours a day for many years to make a wonderful sound,'' Miller says. 'Or you can go to an Apple store, buy a laptop and you can find the right software to have control of every sound.' But there's a deeper reason why we've lost the funk. We've lost the communal spirit that feeds funk music. We've gone from a 'We' to an 'I' society. That's how Robert D. Putnam, the eminent sociologist who wrote 'Bowling Alone,' describes this shift. Americans were once a nation of joiners who participated in groups like the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club and bowling leagues. Today we've become a nation of loners. There's been a surge in Americans who eat their meals alone, at home and in restaurants. We drive around in cars with tinted windows that separate us from the world. Technology has reinforced this social isolation. Many of us interact with screens more than with one another. I'm continually puzzled by people who go to coffee shops to be around other people — and then ignore them by sitting alone in silence, pecking away at their keyboards. This loneliness infects our music. When I pull up next to young people's 'hoopty' cars at stoplights in Atlanta I now hear snippets from a musical wasteland: bland singers who can't hit notes without Auto-Tune, musicians who can't play instruments, and synthetic, overproduced music that sounds like it was sprayed from an aerosol can. Today's pop artists don't seem like they're really listening to one another. Why should I listen to them? I get my funk fix today by going to YouTube and watching old concert footage of funk groups. Many of these videos rack up millions of views. I don't believe all of those viewers are 'turn that music down!' old folks like me. There must also be young people looking for a glimpse of the musical craftsmanship and communal joy that I took for granted as a kid. It's hard for funk to flower in a nation of fearful, isolated people. And yet somehow it still does. Elements of funk music persist in hip-hop, contemporary jazz and in school marching bands. 'Uptown Funk,' the 2014 hit by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, is a prominent example of funk's enduring appeal. Funk bands no longer rule the radio, but their influence is still felt around the globe. Cover bands from as far away as Russia and Australia play funk classics, and one of the most inventive funk dance routines I've ever seen comes from a Japanese choreographer named Moga. She put together a viral dance routine based on a James Brown song that is electric. Funk doesn't just belong to Black people; it speaks to everyone. That's the hope I hold onto now. The need to sing and dance together is as ancient as the earliest humans who played drums and chanted around campfires. No matter our race, age or political beliefs, we all want the funk – even if we don't know it. It's the kind of music human beings will always have a thing for. And thankfully, we can't quite let it go. John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, 'More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.'
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Black Keys Are All Fired Up
Every great rock 'n roll story goes through extreme highs and lows. For every platinum album or Grammy night sweep, disappointment and disaster often awaits right around the corner. The Black Keys experienced a year like that in 2024, with an entire U.S. tour cancelled and an album it was meant to promote, Ohio Players, losing momentum as a result. Even so, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney tends to prefer it when things aren't going too well. More from Spin: Exclusive: Shudder To Think Eye New Music, More Shows After Surprise Reunion Lindsay Ell's Top 5 Female Guitarists Jacob Theriot is Living in a 'Gremlin World' 'When things were going really, really well for us, it was the hardest time, and I think that's typically so for bands,' says Carney. 'When you're flying high, the pressure's high, egos are high – it's a dangerous time. But every band I've liked for the most part, most of their careers were a struggle, whether it's the Velvet Underground or the Stooges or whoever. Ultimately, all that stands at the end of time is the music, you know?' For the Black Keys, 2025 will be the year this multiplatinum, Grammy-winning duo works to reclaim their place as popular creators of explosive rock and blues with a new album, No Rain, No Flowers, and international tour. Another sign of their renewed purpose is today's release of the single 'Babygirl' on Easy Eye Sound/Warner Records. The track is bristling, hook-filled and romantic rock, with dramatic piano melodies from acclaimed producer Scott Storch, known for his records with a long list of hitmakers, from Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake to Dr. Dre and the Roots. And singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach purrs the breathless opening lyrics: 'Babygirl, you came along and then you opened my eyes/Babygirl, you make me stronger than I realize.' The song was co-written by the band with Storch and Daniel Tashian, known for his work with Kacey Musgraves, co-writing and co-producing her 2018 Grammy-winning album Golden Hour. On the track, Storch performs on piano and Moog bass. 'He'd always been kind of a hero of ours,' says Auerbach. 'We used to [obsessively watch] his videos on YouTube playing all his parts from his productions on piano. He showed up and he was so excited to be in the studio because it's filled with keyboards here. He said he'd never really recorded with real instruments before—like harpsichords, vibes, tack pianos and stuff. So he was like a kid in a candy shop. We hit it off, man, and we had a lot of fun.' Longtime musical partners Auerbach and Carney, who formed the Black Keys in 2001 in Akron, Ohio, are on the phone from the guitarist's Easy Eye Sound studio and label in Nashville. The duo is in the late stages of completing the album, aiming for a final 12 songs. 'We worked really hard on this album, maybe even more so than we did on Ohio Players,' says Carney. 'I think it's representative of all kinds of stuff that we're into. It's a fun listen.' The new single follows the release of 'The Night Before,' a groove-based rock tune and the first clue that the Black Keys had been working up a new album of songs. It was also co-written with Tashian, who Carney first met after moving to Nashville 15 years ago at a party with Harmony Korine and David Berman, of the Silver Jews. The album's first single emerged as Carney, Auerbach and Tashian played drums, guitar and bass in a circle at Easy Eye. 'It came together so quickly that we overlooked it,' says Auerbach. 'When we were playing the songs we had for people, it was the very last one we played to the record label. As soon as we played it, everyone unanimously said that should be the first single.' The new music amounts to some positive fallout surrounding the release of Ohio Players and the canceled tour. 'We put a lot of time into the album, and then it came out and some bullshit happened and we had to pivot,' says Carney. 'So we pivoted to where we feel most comfortable, which is back in the studio—make more music and just do it again.' Auerbach adds, 'Ultimately, the reason why we have new music is because we weren't able to tour. The tour getting canceled definitely fired our creativity up. It was our way to get through that.' The title of No Rain, No Flowers is an indication of the duo's state of mind, taking charge following a bumpy year. And it comes much quicker than most fans might have expected, but the Keys see the release schedule as a return to their DIY roots, which began by recording their raw 2002 debut The Big Come Up in Auerbach's basement. Carney insists the band has always sought to retain that same hands-on approach ever since. Only more so now. 'Music is designed to be made and released quickly. I don't think it benefits from sitting on shit for like Chinese Democracy-level. No one's ever benefited from taking three years to make a fucking album,' Carney says with a laugh. 'When we first started, we were making a record a year. That's how often a healthy band should be putting out records.' The Black Keys begin their first proper U.S. tour in three years, trading the arenas that were planned for last year's aborted tour for amphitheaters and theaters, which happen to be some of the best spaces for music in the U.S. (Red Rocks near Denver, and L.A.'s Greek Theatre). The No Rain, No Flowers Tour begins May 23rd in Oklahoma. 'The fact we didn't get to tour last year, we hated it,' says Carney. 'It sucks for us, sucks for the fans. Also, the circumstances were bullshit. But at the end of the day, we did get to make another album. And it's something that we're proud of, and that will be a document that will exist long after we're gone.' Aside from the tour, Auerbach and Carney continue to host their frequent 'Record Hangs,' where the musicians get into a small club and spin their favorite pop, soul and rock records from the Sixties, Seventies and beyond. They've taken these all-vinyl nights to different cities around the world, but are currently spinning close to home in Nashville. Their next two monthly Record Hangs are March 22 and April 19 at Flamingo Cocktail Club. The DJ sets include a spontaneous playlist that mixes classic hits from the past with the gorgeously obscure, from Al Green and Sam Cooke to the Hombres and Devo's twitchy version of the Rolling Stones' '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.' The events unfold in intimate settings, with the turntables very close to the fans dancing all around them, a much different scene than the big rooms the Black Keys typically perform in. 'It's all about loving music and discovering records and dancing,' Auerbach explains. 'It's kind of why we started playing music in the first place. It's really amazing to be able to share that with fans. It's been really nice. We've met some great people.' There is also a real connection between those old 45s and the music they're making now. 'We're learning a lot from spinning records, and seeing the audience reaction, feeling it,' says Auerbach. 'You can feel it when you spin the record. You know instantly, once you start playing it in the room, if it's working or not. And it's just been very interesting. And not all songs that we record have to be like Record Hang songs. We still like album tracks, too.' Carney adds, 'I do think it is interesting when you're playing a song in front of a room full of people, if there's any kind of waste of time in that song, it becomes something you might not play again. That comes to mind when we're working [on Black Keys songs].' To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
