Here’s a confession. I only really knew Kool & The Gang for their party tunes and schmaltzy ballads in the Eighties.

Little did I know they were as funky as James Brown and Sly Stone in the Seventies. That’s not how they started or finished.

Formed by the two Bell brothers – bassist Robert (aka ‘Kool’) and horn player Ronald – in New Jersey in the mid-Sixties, they first played traditional jazz in a group called The Jazziacs.

Their inspiration was the Bells’ father Bobby and uncle Tommy, boxers and jazz aficionados who were friends of Thelonious Monk (who became Robert’s godfather) and briefly trained Miles Davis when he wanted to take up boxing.

After performing with jazz stars like Pharaoh Sanders and McCoy Tyner, the group gradually became more RnB oriented, changing their name to Soul Town Band, and The New Dimensions.

In the late Sixties they changed their name – and style – once again.

Inspired by James Brown and Sly Stone, they morphed into a fully-fledged funk outfit called Kool & The Gang. This song, Who’s Gonna Take The Weight, is from the 1971 album Live At the Sex Machine.

Sadly, I didn’t encounter them until the early Eighties when they were a different beast altogether.

After ten modestly received albums, they brought in a new singer, the sweet-sounding James “J.T.” Taylor, and linked up with producer Eumir Deodato in a bid for one last crack at crossover success.

The resulting Ladies Night transformed their fortunes, spawning the title track and Too Hot, and reviving a career that would flourish and thrive with countless hits, from the exuberant Celebration to the irritating Get Down On It and a string of increasingly soppy soul ballads like Cherish and Fresh.

I never knew quite how raw and funky they were in the Seventies, of which the prime example is Jungle Boogie – with its spoken vocal by the band’s roadie, Don Boyce.

But I do now.