{"id":6991,"date":"2017-02-21T13:42:46","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T18:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6991"},"modified":"2017-02-21T13:42:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T18:42:46","slug":"f16c-tribute-to-the-funky-drummer-clyde-stubblefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6991","title":{"rendered":"F16C – Tribute to the Funky Drummer: Clyde Stubblefield"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Example\"
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tribute to the Funky Drummer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clyde Stubblefield Spoken Intro<\/strong>
\n James Brown and the Famous Flames\u2013 Cold Sweat Pts 1&2 (King)<\/strong>
\n James Brown \u2013 Say It Loud (I\u2019m Black and I\u2019m Proud) Pts 1&2 (King)<\/strong>
\n Marva Whitney \u2013 It\u2019s My Thing (King)<\/strong>
\n James Brown \u2013 Mother Popcorn Pts 1&2 (King)<\/strong>
\n Clyde Stubblefield Live Solo 1968<\/strong>
\n James Brown \u2013 Shhhhhhhh For a Little While (King)<\/strong>
\n James Brown and the Famous Flames \u2013 I Got the Feelin\u2019 (King)<\/strong>
\n James Brown \u2013 Popcorn With a Feeling (King)<\/strong>
\n James Brown \u2013 Funky Drummer Pts1&2 (King)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Funky16Corners Presents: Tribute to the Funky Drummer: Clyde Stubblefield 65MB Mixed MP3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Greetings all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is something I would have put together earlier but the fam and I were on the road when word came down that the mighty\u00a0Clyde Stubblefield<\/strong>, <\/a>aka the Funky Drummer had slipped the surly bonds of earth.<\/p>\n

Between 1965 and 1970 Stubblefield was deep, deep<\/strong> inside the pocket, driving the James Brown<\/strong> band from the drummer’s throne, often alongside John ‘Jabo’ Starks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stubblefield was as tasteful and economical a drummer as ever played soul and funk, with a tight, crisp style that managed to swing like hell.<\/p>\n

Back when the Godfather of Soul passed away, I wrote about his work on ‘Cold Sweat’ thusly:<\/a><\/p>\n

“It was in \u2018Cold Sweat\u2019 that James Brown, after three years of work, decided to \u2018give the drummer some\u2019, and things were never the same. With that record, he gathered together all of his innovations since \u2018Out Of Sight\u2019 \u2013 along with all the other musicians that he had inspired in the ensuing three years \u2013 and broke through yet another wall. \u2018Cold Sweat\u2019 is the \u2018groove\u2019, expanded upon, then further refined so as to concentrate its\u2019 power. The beat is more experimental, the song structure now reduced to it\u2019s essence (as if the \u2018groove\u2019, at one time adjacent to the song, had now become<\/i> the song). This is never more apparent than in Pt2, where the aforementioned \u2018drummer\u2019, gets the also aforementioned \u2018some\u2019 \u2013 and blows soul music out of the water.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The drum break on side two of \u2018Cold Sweat\u2019 is a remarkable testament to exactly how far ahead his peers James Brown had gone.<\/strong>
\nIn the sound of funk, there is no more important component than the drummer(s). Without the drummer, the groove has no foundation. Certainly a groovy bass line can get you moving side to side, but without the forward propulsion of the drummer, you aren\u2019t really going anywhere. The most important element of the drummers importance to funk, is that it is through him (or her as the case may be) that funk received it\u2019s most radical elements. These elements are the rhythms of Afro-Cuban music, and most importantly modern jazz. Anyone familiar with Elvin Jones, Max Roach or Art Blakey will hear their echoes in the beats of funk. These are the sounds of percussionists that got inside the rhythm and stretched it into all kinds of new shapes, designed to grab the body at it\u2019s core and move it, i.e. make it dance. The BeBoppers and the modern jazzers provided an obsession with open spaces and explosive punctuation. They brought rhythm up out of the viscera, through the heart and into the head. This \u2018intellectualism of the beat\u2019, in combination with the polyrhythmic fire of congueros like Chano Pozo and Mongo Santamaria (later quite the funkster himself) timbaleros like Tito Puente, and the freedom of the New Orleans \u2018Second Line\u2019 drummers (Earl Palmer, June Gardner, Smokey Johnson and James Black) – which in turn has it\u2019s parallels in the samba drummers of the Brazilian carnival \u2013 all contributed to the funky stew. This is not to say that Clyde Stubblefield had his ears turned to New Orleans, Rio or even the Village Gate \u2013 directly<\/i> (he may well have), but that all of those sounds were swirling around in the mid-60\u2019s, and all found their way into the sound of the funky drummer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The break in Cold Sweat Pt2 is presaged, at about 45 seconds with six pleas (commands?) to \u2018Give the drummer some” before turning to Stubblefield with \u2018You got it drummer!\u2019. The Flames drop away as Stubblefied works the kit, keeping time on the ride cymbal, booming on the toms and popping the beat on the bass drum. Ten seconds later JB brings in Bernard Odum on bass, and for almost \u00be of a minute he and Clyde break it on down. At 1:59 the horns come back in and ride all the way to the end. At nearly a full minute, Stubblefield\u2019s \u2018break\u2019 is hovering dangerously close to the land of the drum solo, yet the energetic self indulgence of a Ginger Baker, Keith Moon (or even Buddy Rich) is absent, and has been replaced by a deeply funky vibe. This is a drum solo you can dance<\/i> to. It is devoid of pyrotechnics yet full of ideas \u2013 subtle yet consistently explosive. It\u2019s no mistake that Stubblefield is the man who\u2019s work found it\u2019s way into dozens of samples. The man who inspired JB to chant \u2018The Funky Drummer!\u2019, over and over again.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mix you see before you includes most of Clyde Stubblefield’s best known work with JB, as well as a clip from the famed 1968 Boston Garden concert<\/a> which is like a punch in the gut.<\/p>\n

I spent a lot of time playing the drums when I was younger, but I could only sit back wide-eyed (and eared) at the work of Clyde Stubblefield, who played the drums like James Brown danced.<\/p>\n

He was a master.<\/p>\n

Keep the faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!<\/strong> The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.<\/strong> They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).<\/strong> Click here to go to the ordering page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tribute to the Funky Drummer Clyde Stubblefield Spoken Intro James Brown and the Famous Flames\u2013 Cold Sweat Pts 1&2 (King) James Brown \u2013 Say It Loud (I\u2019m Black and I\u2019m Proud) Pts 1&2 (King) Marva Whitney \u2013 It\u2019s My Thing (King) James Brown \u2013 Mother Popcorn Pts 1&2 (King) Clyde Stubblefield Live Solo 1968 James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,17,14,77,12,18,228],"tags":[229,163,166,178,164],"class_list":["post-6991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funk","category-funk-45","category-funky16corners","category-james-brown","category-soul","category-soul-45","category-the-funky-drummer","tag-clyde-stubblefield","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-james-brown","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1OL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6993,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions\/6993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}