F16C – Tribute to the Funky Drummer: Clyde Stubblefield
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Tribute to the Funky Drummer
Clyde Stubblefield Spoken Intro
James Brown and the Famous Flames– Cold Sweat Pts 1&2 (King)
James Brown – Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) Pts 1&2 (King)
Marva Whitney – It’s My Thing (King)
James Brown – Mother Popcorn Pts 1&2 (King)
Clyde Stubblefield Live Solo 1968
James Brown – Shhhhhhhh For a Little While (King)
James Brown and the Famous Flames – I Got the Feelin’ (King)
James Brown – Popcorn With a Feeling (King)
James Brown – Funky Drummer Pts1&2 (King)
Greetings all.
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 Clyde Stubblefield, aka the Funky Drummer had slipped the surly bonds of earth.
Between 1965 and 1970 Stubblefield was deep, deep inside the pocket, driving the James Brown band from the drummer’s throne, often alongside John ‘Jabo’ Starks.
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.
Back when the Godfather of Soul passed away, I wrote about his work on ‘Cold Sweat’ thusly:
“It was in ‘Cold Sweat’ that James Brown, after three years of work, decided to ‘give the drummer some’, and things were never the same. With that record, he gathered together all of his innovations since ‘Out Of Sight’ – along with all the other musicians that he had inspired in the ensuing three years – and broke through yet another wall. ‘Cold Sweat’ is the ‘groove’, expanded upon, then further refined so as to concentrate its’ power. The beat is more experimental, the song structure now reduced to it’s essence (as if the ‘groove’, at one time adjacent to the song, had now become the song). This is never more apparent than in Pt2, where the aforementioned ‘drummer’, gets the also aforementioned ‘some’ – and blows soul music out of the water.
The drum break on side two of ‘Cold Sweat’ is a remarkable testament to exactly how far ahead his peers James Brown had gone.
In 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’t 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’s 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’s 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 ‘intellectualism of the beat’, 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 ‘Second Line’ drummers (Earl Palmer, June Gardner, Smokey Johnson and James Black) – which in turn has it’s parallels in the samba drummers of the Brazilian carnival – 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 – directly (he may well have), but that all of those sounds were swirling around in the mid-60’s, and all found their way into the sound of the funky drummer.The break in Cold Sweat Pt2 is presaged, at about 45 seconds with six pleas (commands?) to ‘Give the drummer some” before turning to Stubblefield with ‘You got it drummer!’. 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 ¾ 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’s ‘break’ 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 to. It is devoid of pyrotechnics yet full of ideas – subtle yet consistently explosive. It’s no mistake that Stubblefield is the man who’s work found it’s way into dozens of samples. The man who inspired JB to chant ‘The Funky Drummer!’, over and over again.”
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 which is like a punch in the gut.
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.
He was a master.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.
Themocracy