Hawk’s Friday Funk for January 29, 2010

Posted by Michael on Jan 29, 2010 in Funky Stuff | 0 comments

Years before Cherish, before Ladies Night, long before Celebration and long before Get Down On It, Kool and the Gang were actually really cool.  This group of super talented and funky musicians led by bassist Ronald “Kool” Bell, put together some amazing funk spanning from their self-titled debut album in late 1969 to about 1976, before they were consumed by disco cheese and bad decisions.

Following up on their solid debut, they put out two “live” albums in 1971, Live at P.J.’s and Live at the Sex Machine, both of which were only partially “live”, with the bulk of the material being studio tracks with added audience noise.   Despite that, the music is incredible.   Also check out Music is the Message from 1972 and Wild and Peaceful from 1973 (which contains classics such as “Jungle Boogie”, “Hollywood Swinging” and “Funky Stuff”).

From their now 40-year-old debut album, here’s Kool and the Gang with a classic breakbeat track, “Give it Up.”

And yes I promise, I’ll get back to cooking this week.