EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E 
History of Rock, 1970-Present
John Covach, University of Rochester
https://www.coursera.org/course/historyofrock2
C O U R S E   L E C T U R E 
The Uniqueness of James Brown
Notes taken on June 5, 2015 by Edward Tanguay
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the two founding fathers of funk and black pop in the 1970s
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1. Sly Stone
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2. James Brown
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came out of 1950s into 1960s
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groove-based approach
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interesting kind of aggressive yet absolutely non-threatening vocal approach with outrageous phrases as the key lyric
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you wouldn't listen to these songs to be edified by the lyrics
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these are not singer-songwriter lyrics, where the instruments line up in a mathematical way but that makes it sound like it is heartless and cold but that's far from what it is
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everything sort of locks together in an intricate arrangement just filled with feel and James Brown and his band is certainly the ones for establishing the model for this where Sly Stone was coming from when he was putting his group together
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1965: Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
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1965: I Feel Good
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extended and increased his interest in Funk during the 1970s, plenty of horns, focus on the groove
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1970 Super Bad
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1974 The Payback
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#1 R&B hit
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written for a Blaxploitation file for "Hell Up in Harlem"
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rejected for being the same ol' James Brown song
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George Clinton
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the most obvious influence of James Brown in the 1970s
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his groups:
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Parliament
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Funkadelic
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blends the stylistic elements of James Brown
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and the business approach of Berry Gordy
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became a kind of impresario, assigning his groups to different labels
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born in New Jersey, moved to Detroit in 1960s
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did some work for Motown
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Parliaments
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due to dispute about "Parliaments", he called them Funkadelic
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after court case was resolved, he had two groups
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Parliaments: more commercial
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Funkadelic: more experimental group to try out new, crazy ideas
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1970 Osmium album
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1974 Up for the Down Stroke
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Casablanca label
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also managed KISS
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Funkadelics
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1974 Mothership Connection
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Tear the Roof Off the Sucker
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celebrates the roof
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stage show
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space ship that came down
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costumes
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sophisticated theatrics for the early seventies
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there was always a sense that they were just having fun with these ideas
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Average White Band
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a group that played in the same genre as Sly Stone, James Brown, and George Clinton, but a group you would hear on FM radio
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formed in Scotland in 1972
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1974 album AWB was a number one album in the United States
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Pick up the Pieces, a #1 hit single
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1975 Cut the Cake
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stood for what white listeners though must be going on in black pop