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Funk

D/Troit – Soul Thing

22nd September 2025 · 2010s, 2016, Funk, Music, Soul

Here’s a slice of vintage funk from the streets of the motor city. Except it’s not. D/Troit are an all-white funk revival outfit from… Copenhagen.

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The Band AKA – Grace

24th June 2025 · 1980s, 1981, Funk, Music

This exuberant disco-funk anthem completely passed me by at the time. I was listening to very different music when it came out in 1981.

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The Gap Band – You Dropped A Bomb On Me

21st June 2025 · 1980s, 1982, Funk, Music

I don’t want to tempt fate with this song but it does seem appropriate for the times we are living in. You can almost imagine Smashie and Nicey dedicating it to “all the wunnderful people in Gaza.” Or Tel Aviv. Or Ukraine. Tulsa, Oklahoma, is about as midwest as you can get in the Midwest. It’s a lovely city where very little happens and its most famous musical natives, JJ Cale and Leon Russell, seem to have pursued careers without ever making a thing about being Okies. Then there’s Hanson, the boy band who gave us the Motown-lite earworm Mmm Bop, and whom I will always like because they’re lovely fellas who looked after me in Tulsa for a few days when I went there to write about them. Then there’s The Gap Band. Comprising the three Wilson brothers – Charlie, Ronnie and Robert – they became one of the most popular funk groups of the late Seventies, pioneering a brand of music that took the genre into the Eighties on a wave of synthesized basslines. In fact their run of hits spanned nearly 20 years from 1977 to 1995, all of them featuring Charlie’s deep, invigorating lead vocals. Like most black groups of the era, the brothers began singing and playing in their father’s Pentecostal church, also taking music lessons at home. The oldest sibling, Ronnie, started his own band by the age of 14 while Charlie joined a rival group a couple of years later. One night both bands were performing across the street from one another and Ronnie stopped by to check out Charlie grooving on the organ; impressed enough to offer him aa $50 raise to join his own band. Soon after that the bass player quit so they summoned their younger brother Robert, still barely 14, to take over the vacant spot. Adopting the unwieldy name of the Greenwood, Archer & Pine Street Band, they quickly shortened it to the G.A.P. Street Band but due to a typographical error, they were advertised as the Gap Band – and the new name stuck. They performed at venues around the Tulsa area, including country & western joints and tennis clubs, but the band as we know them only really took shape after Charlie moved to LA and convinced his brothers to join him on the west coast. After a couple of minor hits, a deal with Mercury put the Gap Band on the fast track with a self-titled 1979 album, led by the success of the singles Shake and Open Up Your Mind. Their first major hit did not arrive until the turn of a new decade. Burn Rubber (Why You Wanna Hurt Me) introduced the brand new sound of a synthesized bassline from Cavin Yarbrough – who died this week – who had his own huge hit with Alisa Peoples’ Don’t Stop The Music (by Yarbrough and Peoples). Both tunes defined the sound of clubs in 1980 but The Gap Band also did ballads, such as Yearning For Your Love, though I prefer them ripping up the dancefloor on funky tunes like this one, You Dropped A Bomb On Me. Robert Wilson died in 2010 and his brother Ronnie in 2021, leaving Charlie as sole survivor. <div class="youtube"><iframe title="You Dropped A Bomb On Me (Original 12" Mix)" width="500" height="375" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-s3scfw7DTc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>

A sibling trio dressed in bejewelled cowboy outfits, The Gap Band were pioneers of synth-funk in the early Eighties.

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RIP Sly Stone (1943-2025)

10th June 2025 · 2020s, 2025, Funk, Music, R.I.P., Soul

If James Brown was the godfather of soul, then Sly Stone was the wayward genius of a younger brother who followed him into the family trade.

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Sly & The Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

4th June 2025 · 1970, 1970s, Funk, Music

Sly & The Family Stone were never funkier than on this tune, with Larry Graham’s bass to the forefront of Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).

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El Michels Affair – Too Late To Turn Back

3rd June 2025 · 2000s, 2005, Funk, Music, Soul

El Michels Affair make impeccably crafted cinematic instrumentals recreating the sound of late-Sixties and early-Seventies funk and soul.

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Gamith – Darkness

15th May 2025 · 1970, 1970s, Funk, Music

This funky deep cut comes from one of those niche soul compilations, called Carolina Funk: Funk 45s From The Atlantic Coast. It’s the only known release by Gamith.

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The Pointer Sisters – Chainey Do

10th March 2025 · 1970s, 1975, Funk, Music, Soul

Here is a sultry slice of funk, driven by a killer bassline, with the sweet sibling vocals of The Pointer Sisters from their third album Steppin’ back in 1975.

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RIP Roy Ayers (1940-2025)

7th March 2025 · 2000s, 2005, 2020s, 2025, Funk, Jazz, Music, R.I.P., Soul

I’ve never been a jazz-funk fan and the vibraphone would be very low on my list of favourite instruments, ranking alongside the flute and just above the ukelele. But I’d have to make an exception for Roy Ayers.

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Brass Construction – Movin’

16th February 2025 · 1970s, 1975, Funk, Music

Brass Construction burst out of Brooklyn in the wake of B.T. Express with a similar recipe of supercharged funk with horns blowing up a storm.

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Funk

D/Troit – Soul Thing

The Band AKA – Grace

The Gap Band – You Dropped A Bomb On Me

RIP Sly Stone (1943-2025)

Sly & The Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

El Michels Affair – Too Late To Turn Back

Gamith – Darkness

The Pointer Sisters – Chainey Do

RIP Roy Ayers (1940-2025)

Brass Construction – Movin’