The Beat Collector: Soulphonic Psychfunk - Funks Gonna Get Ya!

The Beat Collector: Soulphonic Psychfunk - Funks Gonna Get Ya!

Work On A Dream - Birtha

Paul Newman - Lefties Soul Connection

I Am The Black Gold Of the Sun - Nuyorican Soul

Keep On Playin’ - Breakestra

Too Loose To Get Tight Pt1 - Sod

Mpb - Tim Maia

Dynamite - Masters Of Ceremony

Music Is Ruling My World - Kutiman feat. Karolina

Doggfather (Remix) - Snoop Dogg

The Billion Pound Project - Andy Lewis

Back On the Streets - The Sound Stylistics

Flunky flunky - Soul Set

Best Days of Our Lives - Galliano feat. Red Snapper

Martian Earth-watch - James Taylor Quartet

To Every Hood Part III - Urban Quest

Funks Gonna Get Ya! mp3

~ by thebeatcollector on April 24, 2008.

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The Beat Collector: Button Down Funk

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Here Comes The Nice

20 Questions You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Ask…Rinaldi Sings
Thanks to the heads up from Billy on the Adrian Holder post it came to my attention that another member of Here Comes The Nice favourites The Moment would be a good port of call for a Q&A. I’ve no idea why it didn’t occur to me before, but as it happens it’s turned out to be perfect timing. Steve Rinaldi [...]
James Taylor Quartet - Be My Lady
As I’ve finally worked out the video posting nerdity side of wordpress, I thought I’d address that jazz blip in the last post with a quick fix of all things mod. The James Taylor Quartet delivering an outstanding cover of The Artwoods classic, and all set to accompanying footage of dudes and dudettes riding around [...]
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I’ve gone jazz on yo ass’s for this one. Don’t panic! It’s mostly Blue Note cos that’s the only form I can get into without wanting to chew my own arm off due to imense boredom at some ‘cats’ over-indulgence. If you ask me (which admittedly you haven’t but I’m gonna tell you anyway), it’s all modernism folks - just different [...]
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Baby Charles are in the chair (see pic below…do you like what I did there?) doing the Q&A thang over on The Right Side Of Funky right now and a guest mix + Q&A courtesy of Vincent the Soul Chef from Fufu Stew will be coming in to land tomorrow, so be sure to pop by and [...]
20 Questions You Didn’t know You Wanted To Ask…Chris Sheehan
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20 Questions You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Ask…Marie Julie from Stereoscope Jerk Explosion
And now for something completely different. Marie Julie from Steroscope Jerk Explosion has very kindly allowed us into their groovy world with the Q&A. The debut album is nearing completion and the singer/writer, moog and hammond player has put her tools to one side for a moment to give us her answers. Many thanks to Marie Julie [...]
The Beat Collector: Love Reign O’er Me
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The sun is out people and just to make things even better, Groovy Uncle is on board with the 20 Questions. Larry from Funky16Corners is currently doing the honours over at The Right Side Of Funky so be sure to check that out when you are done here. Groovy Uncle writes songs at an insane rate. I regularly check up on him in [...]
The Beat Collector: The Acid Queen
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20 Questions You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Ask…Richard from The Five Aces
Next up with the answers it’s Richard from The Five Aces. To hear some highly accomplished gold dust check them out on myspace. ‘If You Reap’ keeps dragging me back so be warned! Another difficult one to decide where to post. The rnb and Stax influence in some of their tunes will I’m sure be of interest here and on The Right Side Of Funky but there’s so much more [...]
The Guest List: Number 9’s ‘Quel Organ!’ mix
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20 Questions You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Ask…Adrian Holder
Guest mixes and posts are now being arranged for Here Comes The Nice as well as this new series. Starting here and shortly to begin over at The Right Side Of Funky. A nod to Dave over at Planet Mondo for a much needed kick up the jacksey. Plenty of names are lined up for the future and fittingly a [...]
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Web definition of The Funk

Funk is an American musical style that originated in the mid- to late-1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony, and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Unlike R&B and soul songs, which had many chord changes, funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord. Like much of African inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands also usually have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and in some cases, a trombone, which plays rhythmic "hits". Influential African American funk performers include James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, The Meters, The Funk Brothers, Bootsy Collins, and Prince. Notable 1970s funk bands included Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, The Commodores, and Kool & the Gang though many of these most famous bands in the genre also played disco and soul extensively. Funk music was a major influence on the development of 1970s disco music and funk samples are used in most styles of house music and hip hop music, and it's also the main influence of Go-Go. Funk even left its mark on New Wave, and its pulse was evident in post punk as well. Characteristics - Funk creates an intense groove by using strong bass guitar riffs and bass lines. Funk was built on Motown recordings, which put bassists such as James Jamerson to the forefront. Like Motown recordings, funk songs used bass lines as the centerpiece of songs. Notable funk bassists include Bootsy Collins, Bernard Edwards, George Porter, Jr., Louis Johnson and Larry Graham of Sly & the Family Stone. Graham is generally credited with inventing the percussive "slap bass technique." Slap bass' mixture of thumb-slapped low notes and finger "popped" high notes allowed the bass to have a drum-like rhythmic role, which became a distinctive element of funk. Some of the best known and most skillful soloists in funk have jazz backgrounds. Trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonist Maceo Parker are among the most notable musicians in the funk music genre, with both of them working with James Brown, George Clinton and Prince. Sometimes 1970s funk bands are divided to "hardcore funk" and "sophisticated funk", former concept referring to earthy sound in a vein of James Brown or Funkadelic while "sophisticated funk" refers to artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire or Brothers Johnson who use softer sounds and fill their albums with soul ballads. Funk utilized the same extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. However, unlike bebop jazz, with its dizzying and complex rapid-fire chord changes, funk virtually abandoned chord changes, creating static single chord vamps with little harmonic movement, but with a complex and driving rhythmic feel. The chords used in funk songs typically imply a dorian or mixolydian mode as opposed to the major or natural minor tonalities of most popular music. Melodic content was derived by mixing these modes with the blues scale. In the 1970s, jazz music drew upon funk to create a new subgenre of jazz-funk, which can be heard in 1970s recordings by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. In funk bands, guitarists typically play in a percussive style, often using the wah-wah sound effect and muting the notes in their riffs to create a percussive sound. Guitarist Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic were influenced by Jimi Hendrix's improvised solos. Eddie Hazel, who worked with George Clinton, is one of the most notable guitar soloists in funk. Ernie Isley was tutored at an early age by Jimi Hendrix himself, when he was a part of The Isley Brothers backing band and lived in the attic temporarily at the Isleys' household. Jimmy Nolen and Phelps Collins are famous funk rhythm guitarists who both worked with James Brown. History - Origin of funk - Look up funk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.The word "funk", once defined in dictionaries as body odor or the smell of sexual intercourse, commonly was regarded as coarse or indecent. African-American musicians originally applied "funk" to music with a slow, mellow groove, then later with a hard-driving, insistent rhythm because of the word's association with sexual intercourse. This early form of the music set the pattern for later musicians. The music was slow, sexy, loose, riff-oriented and danceable. Funky typically described these qualities. In jam sessions, musicians would encourage one another to "get down" by telling one another, "Now, put some stank ("stink"/funk) on it!" At least as early as 1907, jazz songs carried titles such as Buddy Bolden's "Funky Butt." As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when "funk" and "funky" were used increasingly in the context of soul music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company. The distinctive characteristics of African-American musical expression are rooted in West African musical traditions, and find their earliest expression in spirituals, work chants/songs, praise shouts, gospel and blues. In more contemporary music, gospel, blues and blues extensions and jazz often flow together seamlessly. Funky music is an amalgam of soul music, soul jazz and R&B. James Brown and funk as a genre By mid-1960s, James Brown had developed his signature groove that emphasized the downbeat – with heavy emphasis "on the one" (the first beat of every measure) – to etch his distinctive sound, rather than the backbeat that was familiar to many R&B and soul musicians.[2] Brown often cued his band with the command "On the one!," changing the percussion emphasis/accent from the one-two-three-four backbeat of traditional soul music to the one-two-three-four downbeat – but with an even-note syncopated guitar rhythm (on quarter notes two and four) featuring a hard-driving, repetitive brassy swing. This one-three beat launched the shift in Brown's signature funk music style, starting with his 1964 hit single, "Out of Sight" and his 1965 hit, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Brown's innovations pushed the funk music style further to the forefront with releases such as "Cold Sweat" (1967), "Mother Popcorn" (1969) and "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" (1970), discarding even the twelve bar blues featured in his earlier music. Instead, Brown's music was overlaid with "catchy, anthemic vocals" based on "extensive vamps" in which he also used his voice as "a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts and with rhythm-section patterns ... [resembling] West African polyrhythms."[3] Throughout his career, Brown's frenzied vocals, frequently punctuated with screams and grunts, channeled the "ecstatic ambiance of the black church" in a secular context.[3] Although "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "Cold Sweat" were widely credited as the prototype songs that launched the funk genre, "Out of Sight" was the breakthrough hit that signaled the shift in Brown's sound to establish funk as a distinct genre.[4] In a 1990 interview, Brown offered his reason for switching the rhythm of his music: "I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat ... Simple as that, really."[5] According to Maceo Parker, Brown's former saxophonist, playing on the downbeat was at first hard for him and took some getting used to. Reflecting back to his early days with Brown's band, Parker reported that he had difficulty playing "on the one" during solo performances, since he was used to hearing and playing with the accent on the second beat.[6] Other musical groups picked up on the riffs, rhythms, and vocal style developed by James Brown and his band, and the style began to grow. Dyke & the Blazers based in Phoenix, Arizona, released "Funky Broadway" in 1967, perhaps the first record of the soul/rock n' roll era to have "funky" in the title. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band were releasing funk tracks beginning with their first album in 1967, culminating in their classic single "Express Yourself" in 1970. The Meters defined funk in New Orleans, starting with their Top Ten R&B hits "Sophisticated Cissy" and "Cissy Strut" in 1969. Another group who would define funk in the decade to come were The Isley Brothers, whose funky 1969 #1 R&B hit, "It's Your Thing", signaled a breakthrough in African-American music, bridging the gaps of the rock of Jimi Hendrix and the upbeat soul of Sly & the Family Stone and Mother's Finest. 1970s and P-Funk - In the 1970s, a new group of musicians further developed the "funk rock" approach innovated by George Clinton, with his main bands Parliament and, later, Funkadelic. Together, they produced a new kind of funk sound heavily influenced by jazz and psychedelic rock. The two groups had members in common and often are referred to singly as "Parliament-Funkadelic." The breakout popularity of Parliament-Funkadelic gave rise to the term "P-Funk," which referred to the music by George Clinton's bands, and defined a new subgenre. "P-funk" also came to mean something in its quintessence, of superior quality, or sui generis, as in the lyrics from "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" a hit single from Parliament's album "Mothership Connection": I want the bomb. I want the P-Funk. I want my funk uncut. The 1970s was probably the era of highest mainstream visibility for funk music. Other prominent funk bands of the period included Stevie Wonder, The Brothers Johnson, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bootsy's Rubber Band, The Meters, Tower of Power, Ohio Players, The Commodores, War, Kool & the Gang, Confunkshun, Slave, Cameo, the Bar-Kays, Zapp, and many more. George Clinton also played a masterminding role in Bootsy's Rubber Band and several other bands he put together, including Parlet, the Horny Horns, and the Brides of Funkenstein, all part of the P-Funk conglomerate. Already, in late 1960s, many jazz musicians — among them Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock (with his Headhunters band), Grover Washington, Jr., and Cannonball Adderley, Les McCann and Eddie Harris — had begun to combine jazz and funk. Sometimes this approach is called "jazz-funk". Additionally, in the late 1960s work of Miles Davis (with girlfriend/wife Betty Davis) and Tony Williams helped to create Jazz fusion and influenced funk. Funk music was exported to Africa in the late 1960s, and melded with African singing and rhythms to form Afrobeat. Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musician who is credited with creating the music and terming it "Afrobeat". In the early 1970’s, when funk was becoming more mainstreamed, artists like Parliament Funkadelic, the Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Ohio Players, Confunkshun, among others, were successful and getting radio play but according to Billboard Magazine, only Sly & the Family Stone had singles which made it to #1. In 1970 ‘Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin’ hit # 1 as did ‘Family Affair’ in 1971 affording Sly and Funk crossover success and greater recognition unlike some of their equally talented but moderately popular peers before the onslaught of Disco around the middle of that decade which remained hugely popular thru the early 80's. Disco music owed a great deal to funk. Many early disco songs and performers came directly from funk-oriented backgrounds. Some disco music hits, for example "Le Freak" by Chic, included riffs or rhythms very similar to funk music. 1980s and stripped-down funk - In the 1980s, many of the core elements that formed the foundation of the P-Funk formula began to be usurped by electronic machines and synthesizers. Horn sections of saxophones and trumpets were replaced by synth keyboards, and the horns that remained were given simplified lines, and few horn solos. The classic keyboards of funk, like the Hammond B3 organ and the Fender Rhodes piano began to be replaced by the new digital synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7. Electronic drum machines began to replace the "funky drummers" of the past, and the slap and pop style of bass playing were often replaced by synth keyboard bass lines. As well, the lyrics of funk songs began to change from suggestive double entendres to more graphic and sexually explicit content. Rick James was the first funk musician of the 1980s to assume the funk mantle dominated by P-Funk in the 1970s. His 1981 album Street Songs with the singles "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak" resulted in James becoming a bit of a rock star, and paved the way for the future direction of explicitness in funk. Prince used a stripped-down instrumentation similar to Rick James, and went on to have as much of an impact on the sound of funk as any one artist since James Brown. Prince combined eroticism, technology, an increasing musical complexity, and an outrageous image and stage show to ultimately create a musical world as ambitious and imaginative as P-Funk or The Beatles. The Time, originally conceived as an opening act for Prince and based on his "Minneapolis sound", hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B & new wave. They went on to define their own style of stripped-down funk based on tight musicianship and sexual themes. Bands that began during the 1970s P-Funk era incorporated some of the uninhibited sexuality of Prince and state-of-the-art technological developments to continue to craft funk hits. Cameo, Zapp, The Gap Band, The Bar-Kays, and The Dazz Band all found their biggest hits in the 80s, but by the latter half of the 80s, funk had lost its commercial impact. Afrika Bambaataa, influenced by Kraftwerk, created "Electro Funk", a minimalist machine-driven style of funk with his single "Planet Rock" in 1982. Also known simply as Electro, this style of funk was driven by synthesizers and the electronic rhythm of the TR-808 drum machine. The single "Renegades of Funk" followed in 1983. Recent developments - While funk was all but driven from the radio by slick commercial R&B and New Jack Swing, its influence continued to spread. Rock bands began adding elements of Funk to their sound, creating new combinations of "funk rock" and funk metal. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Living Colour, Jane's Addiction, Prince, Primus, Fishbone, Faith No More, Incubus and Rage Against the Machine spread the approach and styles garnered from funk pioneers to new audiences in the mid-to-late 1980s and the 1990s. These bands later inspired the underground mid-1990s funkcore movement and current funk-inspired artists like Outkast, The Black Eyed Peas, and Van Hunt. In the 1990s, artists like Me'shell Ndegeocello and the (predominantly UK-based) Acid jazz movement including artists and bands such The Brand New Heavies, Incognito, Omar and Jamiroquai carried on with strong elements of funk. However, they never came close to reaching the commercial success of funk in its heyday, with the exception of Jamiroquai whose album Travelling without Moving sold about 11.5 million units worldwide. Meanwhile in Australia and New Zealand, bands playing the pub circuit, such as Supergroove, Skunkhour and The Truth, preserved a more instrumental form of funk. Since the middle of the 80s hip hop artists regularly sample old funk tunes. James Brown is said to be the most sampled artist in the history of hip hop. while P-Funk is the second most sampled artist; samples of old Parliament and Funkadelic songs formed the basis of West Coast G Funk. Original beats that feature funk-styled bass or rhythm guitar riffs are also not uncommon. Dr. Dre (considered the progenitor of the G-Funk genre) has freely acknowledged to being heavily influenced by George Clinton's psychedelic funk: "Back in the 70s that's all people were doing: getting high, wearing Afros, bell-bottoms and listening to Parliament-Funkadelic. That's why I called my album The Chronic and based my music and the concepts like I did: because his shit was a big influence on my music. Very big".[2] Digital Underground was a large contributor to the rebirth of funk in the 1990s by educating their listeners with knowledge about the history of funk and its artists. George Clinton branded Digital Underground as "Sons of the P", as their second full length release is also titled. DU's first release, Sex Packets, was full of funk samples, with the most widely known "The Humpty Dance" sampling Parliament's "Let's Play House". A very strong funk album of DU's was their 1996 release Future Rhythm. Much of contemporary club dance music, drum and bass in particular has heavily sampled funk drum breaks. Funk is a major element of certain artists identified with the Jam band scene of the late 1990s and 2000s. Phish began playing funkier jams in their sets around 1996, and 1998's The Story of the Ghost was heavily influenced by funk. Medeski Martin & Wood, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Galactic, Soulive, and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe all drawing heavily from the funk tradition. Since the mid 1990s the nu-funk scene, centered around the Deep Funk collectors scene, is producing new material influenced by the sounds of rare funk 45's. Labels include Desco, Soul Fire, Daptone, Timmion, Neapolitan, Kay-Dee, and Tramp. Bands include Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, The Soul Destroyers, The Grits, Chris Joss, Speedometer, The Poets of Rhythm, The Neapolitans, Quantic Soul Orchestra, The New Mastersounds and Lefties Soul Connection. These labels often release on 45 rpm records. Although specializing in music for rare funk DJ's, there has been some crossover into the mainstream music industry, such as Sharon Jones' 2005 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In the early 2000s, some punk funk bands such as Out Hud perform in the indie music scene. Prince, with his recent albums has given a rebirth to the funk sound with songs like "The Everlasting Now", "Musicology" and "Black Sweat".

Web definition of Northern Soul

The music that has been described as Northern Soul originally consisted of obscure American soul recordings, including lesser known songs from Motown Records, Stax Records, Okeh Records and many more obscure record labels. The phrase Northern Soul was coined by journalist Dave Godin and popularised in 1970 through his column in Blues and Soul magazine. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo, he explained that he had first come up with the term in 1968 as a sales reference for use in his record shop in Covent Garden, to help staff differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother, Motown-influenced soul of a few years earlier: I had started to notice that northern football fans who were in London to follow their team were coming into the store to buy records, but they weren’t interested in the latest developments in the black American chart. I devised the name as a shorthand sales term. It was just to say ‘if you’ve got customers from the north, don’t waste time playing them records currently in the U.S. black chart, just play them what they like - ‘Northern Soul’. A large proportion of Northern Soul's original audience came from the mod movement. Some mods started to embrace the freakbeat and psychedelic rock of the late 1960s, but other mods - especially those in northern England - stuck to the original mod soundtrack of soul and blue beat. Some mods transformed into what would eventually be the skinheads, and others formed the basis of the Northern Soul scene. Early Northern Soul fashion included bowling shirts, button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and unusual numbers of buttons, Trickers brogue shoes, baggy trousers or shrink-to-fit Levi's jeans. Many dancers wore badges representing membership to clubs organised by dance halls. The first nightclub that effectively defined the Northern soul sound was Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club. Other early clubs were the The Mojo in Sheffield, The Catacombs in Wolverhampton, Golden Torch in Stoke, Room at the Top in Wigan, the Wigan Casino, the Blackpool Mecca and Va Va's in Bolton. The music reached its peak of popularity in the mid to late 1970s, when Wigan Casino was voted the world's number one discotheque. Thousands of people visited every week, but the exclusive and underground appeal of the music was lost and many of the hardcore soul fans drifted away. When Wigan Casino shut down in 1981, many believed the Northern Soul scene was about to end. However, the 1970s mod revival and the later scooterboy subculture produced a new wave of fans. The 1980s — often dismissed as a low period for the Northern Soul scene by those who had left in the 1970s — featured almost 100 new venues in places as diverse as Bradford, London, Peterborough, Leighton Buzzard, Whitchurch, Coventry and Leicester. Pre-eminent among the 1980s venues were Stafford's Top of the World and London's 100 Club. Previously, most of the songs played at Northern Soul clubs had been fast stompers by American blacks, but 1980s Northern Soul DJs began to add mid-tempo tunes, slower ballads and songs by non-African-American acts such as Gale Garnett. Artists and records - UK-issued northern soul records are among the most expensive vinyl recordings to collect (although their equivalent U.S.-released discs often sell for much lower prices). Many 7" singles have broken the £1,000 (c. $2,000) barrier; a copy of Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You" sold several years ago for £15,000 (c. $30,000). The value of many discs has appreciated, due not only to their rarity, but more because of the quality of the beat, melody, and lyrics of the songs (often expressing heartache, pain or joy related to romantic love). Many soul artists attempted stardom without all of the necessary ingredients in place. Low-budget independent labels couldn't deliver the necessary promotion and radio play. Many artists had to go back to their day jobs, thinking themselves failures, with their records sinking into obscurity, until they were revived in the Northern Soul circuit. Songs by Tami Lynn, The Fascinations and The Velvelettes that were originally released in the 1960s all became top 40 UK hits in 1971. Tami Lynn got to #4 with "I'm Gonna Run Away From You", The Fascinations made #30 with "Girls Are Out to Get you" and the Velvelettes managed #35 with "These Things Will Keep Me Loving You." Many other songs became surprise hits years after they were recorded. Among them were "Loves Gone Bad" and "I Want to Go Back There Again" by Chris Clark, "Just Loving You" and "Helpless" by Kim Weston, "Every Little Bit Hurts" by Brenda Holloway and "Heartbeat" by Gloria Jones

Web definition of soul music

Soul music has some of its roots in gospel music and rhythm and blues. Many consider soul music to be a genre of music created by African Americans in northern United States inner cities, particularly Chicago.[citation needed] Other areas, such as Detroit and Memphis, Tennessee quickly followed and created their own regional soul music style, due to their gospel roots. Some of the elements from Chicago and other parts of the United States, such as the south, brought some raw unpolished funky talent to heavily-populated inner cities, where soul became polished and perfected. Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, Jackie Wilson, and Etta James were early popular stars of the music genre, and other soul forerunners include: Mahalia Jackson, Louis Jordan, Louis Prima, and Big Joe Turner. Some of the earliest soul artists included Ray Charles, Little Richard, Fats Domino and James Brown, although all were happy to call themselves rock and roll performers at the time. During the 1960s Beatles boom, both Charles and Brown claimed that they had always really been R&B singers. Little Richard proclaimed himself the "king of rockin' and rollin', rhythm and blues soulin'", because his music embodied elements of all three, and because he inspired artists in all three genres. Solomon Burke's early recordings for Atlantic Records codified the soul style, and his early 1960s songs "Cry to Me", "Just Out of Reach" and "Down in the Valley" are considered classics of the genre. Peter Guralnick writes, "it was only with the coming together of Burke and Atlantic Records that you could see anything resembling a movement."[citation needed] In Memphis, Stax Records produced key soul recordings by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Don Covay (who also recorded in New York City for Atlantic Records). Joe Tex's 1965 "The Love You Save" is a classic soul recording. An important center of soul music recording was Florence, Alabama, where the Fame Studios operated. Jimmy Hughes, Percy Sledge and Arthur Alexander recorded at Fame, and Aretha Franklin recorded in the area later in the 1960s. Fame Studios, often referred to as Muscle Shoals (after a town neighboring Florence), enjoyed a close relationship with Stax, and many of the musicians and producers who worked in Memphis contributed to recordings done in Alabama. Another notable Memphis label was Goldwax Records, owned by Quinton Claunch. Goldwax signed O.V. Wright and James Carr, who went on to make several records that are considered essentials of the genre. Carr's "The Dark End of the Street" (written by Chips Moman and Dan Penn) was recorded at two other important Memphis studios, Royal Recording and American Sound Studios, in 1967. American Studios owner Chips Moman produced "The Dark End of the Street", and the musicians were his house band of Reggie Young, Bobby Woods, Tommy Cogbill and Gene Chrisman. Carr also made recordings at Fame Studios, utilizing musicians David Hood, Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins. Aretha Franklin's 1967 recordings, such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "Respect" (originally sung by Otis Redding), and "Do Right Woman-Do Right Man", are considered the apogee of the soul music genre, and were among its most commercially successful productions. During the late 1960s, Stax artists such as Eddie Floyd and Johnnie Taylor made significant contributions to soul music. Howard Tate's recordings in the late 1960s for Verve Records, and later for Atlantic (produced by Jerry Ragovoy) are another notable body of work in the soul genre. Motown Records also contributed to the soul canon, although at the time, the Detroit-based label described itself as a manufacturer of pop music. Music by Motown artists such as Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Marvin Gaye did much to popularise the style, and the overall Motown sound did much to define what later became known as northern soul. In Chicago, Curtis Mayfield created the sweet soul sound that later earned him a reputation as the Godfather of northern soul. As a member of The Impressions, Mayfield infused a call and response style of group singing that resembled the gospel style, and influenced many other groups of the era. By 1968, the soul music movement had begun to splinter, as James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone began to evolve both soul and rhythm and blues into other forms. Guralnick argues that, "More than anything else, though, what seems to me to have brought the era of soul to a grinding, unsettling halt was the death of Martin Luther King in April of 1968."[citation needed] 1970s Later examples of soul music include recordings by The Staple Singers (such as I'll Take You There), and Al Green's 1970s recordings,done at Willie Mitchell's' Royal Recording in Memphis. Mitchell's Hi Records continued the Stax tradition in that decade, releasing many hits by Green, Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, O.V. Wright and Syl Johnson. Bobby Womack, who recorded with Chips Moman in the late 1960s, continued to produce soul recordings in the 1970s and 1980s. In Detroit, producer Don Davis worked with Stax artists such as Johnnie Taylor and The Dramatics. Early 1970s recordings by The Detroit Emeralds, such as Do Me Right, are a link between soul and the later disco style. Motown Records artists such as Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson contributed to the evolution of soul music, although their recordings were considered more in a pop music vein than those of Redding, Franklin and Carr. Although stylistically different from classic soul music, recordings by Chicago-based artists such as Jerry Butler and The Chi-Lites are often considered part of the genre. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres. The social and political ferment of the times inspired artists like Gaye and Curtis Mayfield to release album-length statements with hard-hitting social commentary. Artists like James Brown led soul towards funk music, which became typified by 1970s bands like Parliament-Funkadelic and The Meters. More versatile groups like War, the Commodores and Earth, Wind and Fire became popular around this time. During the 1970s, some slick and commercial blue-eyed soul acts like Philadelphia's Hall & Oates and Oakland's Tower of Power achieved mainstream success, as did a new generation of street-corner harmony or city-soul groups like The Delfonics and Howard University's Unifics. By the end of the 1970s, disco and funk were dominating the charts. Philly soul and most other soul genres were dominated by disco-inflected tracks. During this period, groups like The O'Jays and The Spinners continued to turn out hits. 1980s and later - The emergence of hip hop culture in the late 1970s greatly influenced the soul music that followed in the 1980s. With Afrika Bambaata & The Soulsonic Force enjoying huge hits with beat-heavy tracks like "Planet Rock" and "Looking For The Perfect Beat", soul music-makers realised they would have to make their beats bigger, and also find a way of fusing soul and hip hop music. Production teams like James 'Jimmy Jam' Lewis and Terry Harris (former members of The Time), L.A. (Reid) and Babyface created a harder but also lusher almost epic soul sound, providing endless hits for Janet Jackson, Alexander O'Neal, The SOS Band and Bobby Brown. Writer/producer Teddy Riley and others created something called new jack swing (also known as swingbeat), which fused soul and hip hop. This sound provided hits for acts like Guy, Boyz II Men, Wreckx-n-Effect and Bell Biv DeVoe. After the death of disco in the early 1980s, soul music survived for a short time before going through another metamorphosis. With the introduction of influences from electro music and funk, soul music became less raw and more slickly produced, resulting in a newer genre that was called R&B, (often known as contemporary R&B), which sounded very different from the original rhythm and blues style. In early 1980s Chicago, a new dance genre called house was heavily influenced by soul, funk and disco. This was mainly made using synthesizers and other electronic equipment. House and techno rose to mainstream popularity in the late 1980s and remained popular in the 1990s and 2000s. Also starting in the 1980s, soul music from the United Kingdom become popular worldwide, with artists such as Soul To Soul, Loose Ends, Imagination, Mica Paris and Sade. British soul music became very popular in the 2000s too with artists such as Joss Stone, Terri Walker, Beverley Knight, Corrine Bailey Rae, Adele, Duffy, Amy Winehouse and the Brand New Heavies achieving great success. The United States saw the development of neo-soul around 1994. Mainstream record label marketing support for soul genres cooled in the 2000s due to the industry's re-focus on hip hop. Soul subgenres - Detroit (Motown) soul Dominated by Berry Gordy's Motown Records empire, Detroit soul is strongly rhythmic, and influenced by gospel music. The Motown Sound often includes hand clapping, a powerful bass line, violins, bells and other untraditional instruments. Motown's house band was The Funk Brothers, and singers included: Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Jackson 5, The Four Tops and Stevie Wonder. Songwriters included: Holland-Dozier-Holland, Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong, Smokey Robinson, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Ivy Jo Hunter, Roger Penzabene, and Stevie Wonder. Deep soul and southern soul The terms deep soul and southern soul generally refer to a driving, energetic soul style combining R&B's energy with pulsating southern United States gospel music sounds. Memphis, Tennessee label Stax Records nurtured a distinctive sound, which included putting vocals further back in the mix than most contemporary R&B records, using vibrant horn parts in place of background vocals, and a focus on the low end of the frequency spectrum. The vast majority of Stax releases were backed by house bands Booker T and the MGs (with Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson) and the Memphis Horns (the splinter horn section of the Mar-Keys). The label counted Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd among its stars. Memphis soul - For more details on this topic, see Memphis soul. Memphis soul is a shimmering, sultry style of soul music produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee. It featured melancholic and melodic horns, organ, bass, and drums, as heard in recordings by Hi's Al Green and Stax's Booker T. & the M.G.'s. The latter group also sometimes played in the harder-edged Southern soul style. The Hi Records house band (Hi Rhythm Section) and producer Willie Mitchell developed a surging soul style heard in the label's 1970s hit recordings. Some Stax recordings fit into this style, but had their own unique sound. Philadelphia soul - For more details on this topic, see Philadelphia soul. Based primarily in the Philadelphia International record label, Philadelphia soul (AKA Philly Soul) had a lush orchestral sound and doo-wop-inspired vocals. Thom Bell, and Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff are considered the founders of Philadelphia soul, which was dominated by artists such as The Spinners, The Delfonics, The O'Jays, The Stylistics, The Intruders, Patti LaBelle, MFSB, The Three Degrees, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, McFadden & Whitehead and, for a time, The Temptations. Psychedelic soul - For more details on this topic, see Psychedelic soul. Psychedelic soul was a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music in the late 1960s, which paved the way for the mainstream emergence of funk music a few years later. Principal figures included multicultural band Sly & the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, The Fifth Dimension, and (with producer Norman Whitfield) The Temptations and The Undisputed Truth. Blue-eyed soul - For more details on this topic, see Blue-eyed soul. Blue-eyed soul, (also known as white soul) is a term used to describe R&B or soul music performed by white artists. The term doesn't refer to a distinct style of music, and the meaning of blue-eyed soul has evolved over decades. Originally the term was associated with mid-1960s white artists who performed soul and R&B that was similar to the music released by Motown Records and Stax Records. The term continued to be used in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by the British media to describe a new generation of singers who adopted elements of the Stax and Motown sounds. To a lesser extent, the term has been applied to singers in other music genres that are influenced by soul music. Notable blue-eyed soul artists include George Michael, Hall & Oates, Righteous Brothers, Boy George, The Action, The Rascals, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, The Soul Survivors, Dusty Springfield, Average White Band, Duffy,B.J. Thomas, Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone. Neo soul - For more details on this topic, see Neo soul. The term neo soul is a marketing phrase coined by producer and record label executive Kedar Massenburg to describe a musical blend of 1970s soul-style vocals and instrumentation with contemporary R&B sounds, hip hop beats and poetic interludes. The style was developed in the early to mid 1990s by artists such as Omar Lye-Fook, Maxwell, D'Angelo and Soul II Soul. Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott and Angie Stone helped popularize the sound. Other notable performers include Rahsaan Patterson, Cody Chesnutt, Jaguar Wright, Eric Benet, Amel Larrieux, Adriana Evans, Raphael Saadiq, India.Arie, Lalah Hathaway, Anthony Hamilton, Musiq, Amp Fiddler, Alicia Keys, Joss Stone, Floetry, Vivian Green, Leela James, Frank McComb, Goapele, and N'dambi, as well as newcomers Conya Doss, Ledisi, Maysa, Maya Azucena, Rachael Bell and Eric Roberson. A key musical element in the Neo Soul artist/producer's arsenal is typically a heavy dose of Fender Rhodes or Wurlitzer electric piano pads over a mellow, grooving interplay between the drums (usually with a rim shot snare sound) and a muted, deep funky bass. The Fender Rhodes piano sound gives the music of this sub-genre a "vintage", warm, organic character, reminiscent of the 1970s-era recordings of Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, as well as the work of Roy Ayers on his Mystic Voyage and Everybody Loves the Sunshine albums. Northern soul and modern soul - Further information: Northern soul & Modern soul The phrase northern soul was coined by journalist Dave Godin and popularised in 1970 through his column in Blues and Soul magazine.[3] The term refers to rare soul music that was played by DJs at nightclubs in northern England. The playlists originally consisted of obscure 1960s and early 1970s American soul recordings with an uptempo beat, such as those on Motown Records and more obscure labels such as Okeh Records. Modern soul developed when northern soul DJs began looking in record shops in the United States and United Kingdom for music that was more complex and contemporary. What emerged was a richer sound that was more advanced in terms of Hi-Fi and FM radio technology

Web definition of acid jazz

Acid jazz (also known as club jazz) is a musical genre that combines elements of soul music, funk, disco, particularly looping beats and modal harmony.[1]. It developed over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance/pop music. Acid Jazz is also the name of a recording label in the United Kingdom (founded by Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller) which issues recordings by artists in this genre. While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. The compositions of groups such as The Brand New Heavies and Incognito often feature chord structures usually associated with jazz music. The Heavies in particular were known in their early years for beginning their songs as catchy pop and rapidly steering them into jazz territory before "resolving" the composition and thus not losing any pop listeners but successfully "exposing" them to jazz elements in "baby steps". The acid jazz "movement" is also seen as a "revival" of jazz-funk or jazz fusion or soul jazz by leading DJs such as Norman Jay or Gilles Peterson or Patrick Forge, also known as "rare groove crate diggers". The sound and clubs that went with it arose out of Southern England's rare groove scene of the late seventies and early eighties and various other alternative groups, including the London mod scene. It is distinguished from the Northern Soul scene (then popular in the South of England with clubs such as the 100 Club in Oxford Street) but still portrayed various similarities. The name came into common parlance with the Acid Jazz label but in reality the scene had existed in disparate forms and without a distinguishing name for some time beforehand. Journalists at the time appeared very confused by the genre and made various attempts to connect it to the London mod scene (by links with various former members of that scene, prominently Eddie Piller and the James Taylor Quartet — Taylor having formerly been Hammond Player for sixties garage band The Prisoners). Infamously, ID magazine ran an article on Acid Jazz Mods which irritated both mods and "acid jazz fans" in equal amounts. The scene always had two halves, those who liked the original jazz and soul recordings and those who followed the new bands signed by labels like Acid Jazz. It is the former who still probably support their music, many of the early bands having fallen well by the wayside. Attempts to integrate the music with hip hop and jungle are now regarded by many as misguided attempts to keep the music fresh whilst leading it a long way from its starting point, attempts that were regarded with disdain by many. An important gauge of the UK scene and the creation of the genre are to be found in the UK's Straight No Chaser magazine. Similarly, clothing labels like Duffer of St George were closely associated with the scene, although the "right outfit" was never essential. Disc jockeys Gilles Peterson and Chris Bangs are generally credited with coining the term acid jazz at a 1987 'Talkin' Loud Sayin Something' session. At the time, this was Peterson's regular Sunday afternoon club at Dingwalls in Camden, London. In his Radio 1 biography, Peterson describes how the term Acid jazz came about. "We put on this old 7-inch by Mickey and the Soul Generation which was a rare groove record with a mad rock guitar intro and no beat. I started vary speeding it so it sounded all warped. Chris Bangs got on the microphone and said, 'If that was acid house, this is acid jazz'. That's how acid jazz started, just a joke!" Acid jazz in the international context In the United States notable acid-jazz groups have included The Brand New Heavies and Solsonics; although during the 1990s the major contributions from the US related to jazz dance were predominantly in jazz-house (from labels such as 8 Ball Records) and jazz-rap, particularly by artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, De la Soul, and the Jungle Brothers. From Japan, notable artists included United Future Organization who released 'I Love my Baby: My Baby Loves Jazz' as well as a cover of Van Morrison's 'Moondance'; another prominent artist from Japan was the female vocalist, Monday Michiru. From the UK, Repercussions who had a top hit, Promise me nothing. Other more recent artists and groups who have produced music in this genre include Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Mother Earth, Mr. Scruff, Visit Venus, Praful, and Down to the Bone.

web definition of the mixtape

The most common early mixtapes were bootleg 8 track tapes that were sold at flea markets and truck stops in the late 60's through the early 80's, with names like "Super 73", "Country Chart Toppers" or "Top Pops 1977". Homemade mixtapes became common in the 1980s. Although the compact audio cassette by Philips appeared at the 1963 Berlin radio show, the sound quality of cassettes was not good enough to be seriously considered for music recording until further advances in tape formulations, including the advent of chrome and metal tape. Before the introduction of the audio cassette, the creation of a pop music compilation required specialized or cumbersome equipment, such as a reel-to-reel or 8 track recorder, that was often inaccessible to the casual music fan. As cassette tapes and recorders grew in popularity and portability, these technological hurdles were lowered to the point where the only resources required to create a mix were a handful of cassettes and a cassette recorder connected to a source of prerecorded music, such as a radio or LP player. The 8-track tape cartridge was more popular for music recording during much of the 1960s, as the cassette was originally only mono and intended for vocal recordings only, such as in office dictation machines. But improvements in fidelity finally allowed the cassette to become a major player. The ready availability of the cassette and higher quality home recording decks to serve the home casual user allowed the cassette to become the dominant tape format, to the point that the 8 track tape nearly disappeared shortly after the turn of the 1980s. The growth of the mixtape was also encouraged by improved quality and increased popularity of audio cassette players in car entertainment systems, and by the introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979. A distinction should be drawn between a private mixtape, which is usually intended for a specific listener or private social event, and a public mixtape, or "party tape", usually consisting of a recording of a club performance by a DJ and intended to be sold to multiple individuals. In the 1970s, such DJs as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, Kool Herc and the Herculoids, DJ Breakout, the Funky Four, and DJ Hollywood would often distribute recordings of their club performances via audio cassette, as well as customized recordings (often prepared at exorbitant prices) for individual tape purchasers. These recordings tended to be of higher technical ability than home-made mixtapes and incorporated techniques such as beatmatching and scratching. One 12 October 1974 article in Billboard Magazine reported, "Tapes were originally dubbed by jockeys to serve as standbys for times when they did not have disco turntables to hand. The tapes represent each jockey's concept of programming, placing, and sequencing of record sides. The music is heard without interruption. One- to three-hour programs bring anywhere from $30 to $75 per tape, mostly reel-to-reel, but increasingly on cartridge and cassette." Club proprietors, as well as DJs, would often prepare such tapes for sale. The CD-R disc is currently the most common medium for homemade mixesThroughout the 1980s, mixtapes were a highly visible element of youth culture. However, the increased availability of CD burners and MP3 players and the gradual disappearance of cassette players in cars and households have led to a decline in the popularity of the compact audio cassette as a medium for homemade mixes. The high point of traditional mixtape culture was arguably the publication of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity in 1995. Since then, mixtapes have largely been replaced by mix CDs and shared MP3 playlists, which are more durable, can hold more songs, and require minutes (rather than hours) to prepare. While some mixtape enthusiasts bemoan the obsolescence of the cassette tape, others concede that the greater convenience offered by the mix CD has expanded the possibilities and accessibility of the medium, as indicated by the recent resurgence of mix-swapping clubs that trade mix CDs by regular mail. Some mix enthusiasts also appreciate the potential of the mix CD for extended, continuous mixes and creative album art. Today, websites concerned with electronic music provide mixes in a digital format. These usually consist of recorded DJ sets of live, beat-matched mixes of songs, which are used by DJs seeking to demonstrate their mixing skills to an online audience. Some radio shows worldwide specialize in mix series, including The Breezeblock on BBC Radio 1, The Solid Steel Show (formerly on KISS-FM), and The BTTB Show. Additionally, DJs like DJ Spooky, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Z-Trip or DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, and RJD2 have gained fame for creating new songs by combining fragments of existing songs (which need not necessarily belong to the same genre). The resulting remix or mash-up can be seen as an evolution of the mixtape, in that it appropriates existing songs to give them new meanings through their juxtaposition, but does so in a quicker, more integrated style. This practice is heavily derived from the use of song loops as musical backdrops for an MC's rhymes in hip hop music, which is also related to turntablism. Mixtapes vs. compilations - Many commercially available compilations of pop music initially seem to share certain important characteristics with mixtapes. Like many private mixes, a significant number of the earliest pop LPs were essentially collections of popular singles, and such compilation albums have often taken cues from underground mixes of the same era. One example is Disco Par-r-r-ty, the first nonstop dancing LP record, which was released by Spring Records in October 1974. Consisting of a continuous mix of songs by such artists as James Brown, Mandrill, and Barry White, it was clearly inspired by the bootleg DJ mixes that were becoming popular at the same time. However, the relative anonymity of the compilers of such albums is arguably inconsistent with the rationale behind most mixtapes, which typically reflect the musical tastes of a single compiler. While the editors of such compilations do exercise a certain amount of discretion over song order and selection, the term mixtape is generally restricted to a compilation where the identity of the compiler is clearly associated with the album itself. For example, Starbucks, the coffee chain, sells a compilation CD series called Artist's Choice, which consists of mixes based on selections by such artists as Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, and Sheryl Crow. Similarly, Apple Computer's iTunes Store features Celebrity Playlists, downloadable mixtapes in AAC-compatible form, selected by such artists as Moby, Barry Manilow, and Andrew W.K. The Late Night Tales series has seen artists such as Four Tet and Turin Brakes make their own compilations that are distributed in mainstream record shops such as HMV. The presence of an identifiable compiler whose tastes are reflected in song selection and arrangement allow retail mix CDs to be distinguished from other types of compilations. The distinction can be rather subtle. For example, while most "greatest hits" compilations of individual recording artists consist of a collection of singles in chronological order, others include album tracks, new songs, or obscure selections in addition to established hits, and sometimes reorder the songs for optimal listening. As such, these compilations can be seen as "artist-specific" mixes selected and arranged by the artists themselves. One could also argue that the modern movie soundtrack, which often consists of selected pop music tracks (rather than the traditional orchestral score) is a mixtape with songs selected by the film's director or music supervisor.

A brief history of the beat collector

I seemed to spend my formative years on the preriphery of the mod circles of South London. Having elder brothers and almost through default due to my age I was forced into the two tone camp. The Jam were the only band I was allowed to like that didnt ‘belong’ to the mods as they were current. I was very happy with The Specials, The Selector, The Bodysnatchers and all these bands but there was one problem for me….The Jam made me feel like things made some sense. And Motown blew me away. Not wanting to go into too much detail and dredge up the past…I spent a lot of time in care as a child and due to family circumstances I had a lot of unshown and latent anger from an early age. Something I felt the young Paul Weller understood very well. The Beatles were an education I had to give myself. Elvis never really happened for me as Id missed that exitement and was lucky enough to be born after the musical revolution. ‘Teddy Bear’ anyone? The only revolution I saw was punk - and i hated it. It was crass, dirty, musically inept and not for me. I liked the concept on paper but in reality ….the music sucked. The only band I could listen to were The Clash and I still think to this day, they had more of a ska sound anyway. I fell into mod culture by accident really. My closest brother was a ‘real’ mod. His school uniform was Ben Sherman button downs and Sta-press trousers from 12 years old….even in our financial climate. He would forego some of lifes neccessities in order to look ‘the part’ - if he looked it, he was it. Something it took me many years to fully comprehend. He would force feed me long players on a daily basis and i would sit and nod politely, not realising this music was getting into my bloodstream and would stay there forever. His female friends (modettes as they called themselves) were the most amazing looking women I had ever seen. And his mates at the cafe on their scooters epitomised cool….flash gits! The day ‘it’ happened is one we will both never forget. I was a skinhead kid…sounds bad now but back then we didnt even spit. It was a look more than an attitude. No ‘This Is England’ more ‘this is the nutty sound’. I was a kid - it was great. I shaved my head and wore braces with short jeans and ridiculously long DMs - older girls thought I was cute so I ran with it! This was before the racism had begun and everything was a lot calmer. My brother and his need to infiltrate my mind with music meant that every morning he chose an album to get ready to and I had to listen too. This particular day it was ‘A Spotlight On The Kinks’. All nice and jerky and exactly the kind of thing that made him tick. He left for school as normal with me still tucked up in bed as I didnt have to travel very far. The Kinks still spinning around on our dodgy portable record player. This particular day though, having got half way to his destination he realised he had forgotten his PE kit (as everyone knows the spare kit at school stinks and my brothers staunch styling meant that him in someone elses shorts was never gonna happen). When he returned and in a split second we became more than brothers but best friends and grew a mutual respect we have to this day. He came bounding up the stairs in my memory…in his he was aghast and waited outside listening to me singing away. I’m not so sure that part hasnt been romanticised over time. The record in question was a singles affair that he always span the A side of. Always. He came home to catch me halfway through the B side singing a Kinks track he had never heard of! Instantly he became animated and started rifling through his wardrobe looking for cast offs that might fit my comparitively tiny frame. I was up for it…I must have been. We skived off school that day and blagged the buses to Woolwich market where i discovered another of my brothers many talents. He managed to acquire a full authentic parka for his little brother without even breaking into a run. That was it…..i was now a mod. Or was I? I spent the next year checking out all these fantastic revival bands and honing my 60s ear. Loving every track I heard but not quite settling in fully. There was a problem with it that sat heavily on my shoulders. I wasnt a mod…I never felt good enough! Those guys had that edge only confidence gives you. You dont get unconfident mods. Its like having a fat mod. He’s just a fat kid in a button down - not a mod. Its a coolness thing. I gave up trying. I spent the rest of my childhood/teeenage years drifting around various musical genres trying to find the one that fits but always coming back to this 60s influenced music. The 80s were horrble but at least the Smiths filled that gap I had. Unfortunately i never replaced them. I tried it all….pills and The Happy Mondays, smoke and The Stone Roses (I was ready but they weren’t) and various other drugs with various other bands that had something a bit more interesting and special to offer. Unfortunately I woke up in 89 and realised I was an indie fan. My dalliances with acid had given me a new outlook on the 60s stuff but it wasnt the same as hearing them the first time and feeling like you wanted to be a part of something. I gave it a whirl for a good 10 years - always obscure bands, never the obvious chart botherers. The Pixies had something but they were American. James had something but they were a wet version of Morrissey. Morrissey had something but he pissed him off so he left. If the Super Furry Animals were around back then Id have been sorted but unfortunately Northside, The Mock Turtles and Pop Will Eat Itself were instead. Oh dear! (And I wont even start on the motown re-recordings with the 'huh' vocals and rotten drum breaks!) I was aware through all this that Paul Weller had never released anything I hadnt bought in the first week of release. Regardless of my current musical influences…it was like I had to have it. And with my hand on my heart I can honestly say he hasnt made a record I didnt love. Even if it was just for the b-side! Not 1 shit record in his entire career, in MY opinion. So finding out that Paul Weller was struggling to get a record deal and the fans had switched off amazed me. These guys were mods. That shits for life isnt it. YES! I could hear myself thinking it and suddenly realised Ive been searching for something I found right at the start. It never left me and I was never really a part of it so I felt disgusted by the fans fickle lack of respect to the guy who had basically taught us all about good music. Round 2….Im back. I slowly became that mod again….the clothes changed, the music changed - this time the Stax soul and northern soul I hadnt gone too close to before were jumping out at me. Acid Jazz had happened and i’d loved the whole rare groove vibe….it felt right! It was like coming home (only to discover you are 25/30 years too late). It wasn’t an overnight thing either or even a concious decision…it was a gradual acceptance of who I am. And believe me, it cost me dearly but I’m not sorry. I’m real. Because of my musical integrity and beliefs the expressions ‘arrogant’ and ’snob’ have been hurled at me from time to time - that’s life. The best thing it has given me is an ear for rnb. Real rnb! its also taught me to appreciate the music that led me down lifes magical journey - and if Im honest, thats powerpop!!! Im a 36 year old white English male. How can i say Im predominantely influenced by American 60s soul unless I grew up on a commune. Its British mod groups of the 60s and The Jam that started it (they were the ones influenced by it and they passed that to me) and its Paul Weller that kept it going untill it came full circle. I am now good enough, in my opinion and proud to call myself a mod! The only problem is…..so is everyone these days. I never called myself a mod when I listened to indie music so why do kids do it now. Its not meant to be ‘groovy’, its like they say in the film- 'a way of life'. Ive been called many things in my time but the one true thing that remains is the mod influence from the glory days before anyone else got their hands on me or that music. Obviously this is a hugely condensed and detail free version of events but I hope it at least touches on the passion that comes from accepting a culture over a long period of time and not ‘playing’ at it. Its all about the tunes folks and any feedback will be muchly appreciated - The Beat Collector (Jan 2008)

The Right Side Of Funky