Jam It On the One

Cold Sweat - James Brown

 

• this live version is really good.  Clyde Stubblefield on drums.  The original funky drummer.

James Brown is usually credited with funk's origin, and you can't talk about funk on the one without talking about the first one.  Many consider Cold Sweat to be James Brown's first funk song.  Popular music up to this point primarily had it's groove oriented to the backbeat on 2 and 4, and James Brown up to this point had been making his bread and butter with this type of construction.  Try Me is a really good example.  The big breakthrough was moving the emphasis to the one.  Cold Sweat hits the downbeat hard, then syncopates like crazy.  The main backbeat's second hit gets displaced to the + of 4, which throws the whole groove into a bit of a spin.  The second measure's downbeat kick is missing! Which means when the downbeat finally comes around again and the 2 bar phrase repeats, it funks like a motha.  The downbeat gets emphasized with the snare in the pre-chorus playing along with the horns. Then for the "chorus's" unison horn line, you get a bunch of offbeats.  When the groove drops back in, it's like Christmas morning.  James Brown is also credited with the idea of using what would have traditionally been a vamp, a short repeated backing loop, and using it to construct an entire song.  Cold Sweat is the first song that really fits this mold, which is likely why it's considered the origin. Pee Wee Ellis who did all the horn arranging for JB back then said he lifted the horn lick from "So what".  Once I heard that, it's pretty obvious to the point of hilarious.  So JB looped a jazz vamp, and Pee Wee lifted a horn line and looped it.  I think it's safe to say they also invented hip-hop.  It's no wonder the crate diggers had fistfuls of JB when hip-hop got rolling.

Stevie Wonder - Superstition

 

• another live one that I liked because you can catch shots of another keyboard player playing the second clav line.  This song has two clavs! Does it get any funkier than the most famous clav line of all time also being accompanied by a clav?!  If you want a very pedantic tutorial on how to play both lines, see Vulfpeck's Jack Stratton 

When I first learned about James Brown and the whole funk on the one thing, I was initially pretty confused. A lot of funk songs use a rigid 2 / 4 backbeat to hold down the groove. So I'd hear a song like Superstition where the snare hits every 2 and 4 and thing "isn't the 2 and 4 still emphasized?". It took a while before it clicked with me. Just because a snare hits the 2 and 4, doesn't mean it's an accent. I'm not one to be moved to dancing. I'm the thinky type. If I'd bothered to nod my head, the lesson is immediately learned. When Stevie hits the low Eb on the 1, the lowest note in the melody, your head goes forward. It's as simple as that. Every note in the clav line that lands with a thump hits on the 1 and 3. It's like a dump truck of funk is rolling along and it's dropping a load of heaviness two times a measure, and the rest of the time syncopated magic is just spilling out the back. Incidentally, it's this clip from the Cosby show with Stevie Wonder showing the family his Synclavier where I first heard the phrase "jam it on the one". (Thankfully the reason we can't watch this show any more is not in this scene)

Head - Prince

Like all the masters, Prince was a student of the masters before him. He was great at distilling the essence of a funk groove and putting together minimal arrangements, often backed by programmed drum machines, that still jammed. He claimed he never programmed a hi-hat and always played them in. It's probably true. My drum machines don't sound like his. Head. One word, one syllable, on the one. It's so minimal, there's not much more to say about it. As for the subject matter...he's alluding to something, but I'm afraid he's being too subtle for me.

-Tyler 2020_02_10