It's A Funky World, Volume 2: Things

Another trip down the digital rabbit hole, as expected while searching for funky places turned up related things... Literally too as Larry Ellis and the Black Hammer did exactly that, spread across both sides of a 45!

Fela Ransome Kuti and his Nigeria 70 (or Africa 70) laid down some wicked instrumental afrobeat courtesy of his horn in LA during the late 1960s. Related to that is KC & The Sunshine Band with their “Sound Your Funky Horn” from 1973.

I knew J. Geils Band did “The Funky Judge”, but I wasn’t familiar with the 1968 original by Bull & The Matadors.  No collection should be without Lee Dorsey’s “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On)” from 1969. 

Not all the tracks here come from a distant and often obscure past as Tone-Lōc proves with his hilarious “Funky Cold Medina” from 1989. We got some heavy jazz-funk too, courtesy of Melvin Jackson with his double blast called “Funky Skull Pt. 1 & 2”. Modern sounds come from Nickodemus with some assistance from Jay Rodriguez & Ticklah, showing that the middle place can be quite cool.

In early 1970 a new dance craze hit the charts thanks to Rufus Thomas’ “Do The Funky Chicken”.  In 1970 Bo Diddley became The Black Gladiator and among others recorded “Funky Fly”.

I never realized that it’s possible to smell funky music, but according to Eric Mercury that’s the case… Another genre is country funk, here represented by Cherokee’s “Funky Business”.

A completely unknown artist to me was Zeph Allen who turned in a groovy “Funky Revolution”.  The same story regarding Moon Taxi, but I was pleasantly surprised by their “Funky Respiration”.

The most recent track comes from Cuban-born pianist/composer Harold López-Nussa with a hard-driving Latin jazz dance track, called (no surprise!) “Funky”, from his Timba a la Americana album, released last year.  Enough scribbling, there are plenty of other tracks (20 in fact), just play this damn collection and enjoy!

It's A Funky World, Volume 1: Places

Koen writes: I guess it all started when I heard Toots & The Maytals’ “Funky Kingston” for the first time, it made a lasting impression, still one of my favorite songs.  Last month I finally heard the Jamaican version of Funky, which wasn’t that different from the Island/Mango one released for the international market.

In a review on Pitchfork I discovered that Island’s Chris Blackwell decided to release it after noticing the crossover success of “Funky Nassau” (1971) by Bahamas-based band The Beginning of the End… As I wasn’t familiar with that particular song, I checked it out on YouTube, cool, even with a part 1 & 2!

By now I was starting to wonder how many other funky musical places there might be and the first one I could think of was “Funky Broadway Part 1 & 2” by Dyke And The Blazers. After that it became a trip down the rabbit hole, the internet can be a dangerous place!

A fun discovery was an answer song by Bobby Patterson & The Mustangs called “Broadway Ain't Funky No More”! Coming from the Netherlands I shouldn’t have been surprised by Big John Russell’s “Funky Amsterdam”, but I don’t recall ever hearing it on the radio in 1975.  Similarly, I discovered a “Bangkok Funky” as well, which seemed very fitting as I have been living in Thailand since 1987.

“Funky Town” was of course a big disco hit for Lipps, Inc., but I opted for the heavier 1986 version by Pseudo Echo! This collection takes you all over the planet, from Africa to Texas, and ending on The Funkie Moon!