Lurking on the iplayer is the soul brother to the super disco series of documentaries: We Want The Funk. We finally got round to watching this on Friday and it’s a treat. Actually the first 15 minutes are skippable, as we get the background funk grew from in the early sixties music such as Motown that was about fitting in. By the end of the sixties with the rise of black power people were less interested in fitting in. Enter James Brown, rightly put front and centre as funk ground zero, with Say It Loud. From here we get some awesome clips of JB sweating and hollering, the psychedelia of Sly Stone – and the still bonkers sound and sight of George Clinton and Funkadelic. Someone watching the Parliaments in the late sixties recounts how the first three nights were normal soul music. Night four George went to the bathroom and came out with his hair frizzed out and wearing a nappy. There’s Bowie’s Thin Ginger Haired Duke appearance on Soultrain and the descent of the mothership at a Funkadelic gig. David Byrne of course crops up with his take on the skew wiff funking of Talking Heads. Burning Down » Continue Reading.
