Isn`t It About Time There Was A Genre Arguement In Here
 

Why let all the emo kids have all the fun.

So then ,James Brown the Godfather of Soul...

And yet he pioneered funk.

So what is James Browns music?

Soul or Funk ?

id say soul..when i think of funk, george clinton comes to mind, and even though they are similar they are quite differant.

I see what your saying.

I`d probably go with soul too , I`ve always thought he was a soul singer who pioneered it but others like George Clinton , Rick James,Sly Stone took funk & made it what it was.Thats not to undermine what he did originally.

For me he's a soul man. Soul Brother #1.
On the other hand when it came to funk, he rewrote the rules of rhythm.
Songs that began with 'Out Of Sight' and 'Papas Got A Brand New Bag' and on to 'Cold Sweat' and 'Get Up' made him much more than The Godfather Of Soul.
He's a one off..."unnnh"..."Good God".
"Don't just say, Ow, say, "OOOWWWW!!"
Bone rattling soul. :)

EDIT: One of the greatest live albums ever. Recorded in October 1962...'Live At The Apollo'

I said funk....im not Majorly familliar with a whole bunch of his material...i know he was the godfather of soul and everything....but i hear funk through the stuff i have heard...mind you...ahh whats the use...its a tough choice

Funkin' soul.

I said post hard grindcore emo funk, even though it really seems more like proto hardcore emo funk, but that was the closest of the three.

Soul. Although I was tempted to vote for the last one.

The last one was too tempting... I'd say soul though

i'd say more soul. its a mixture of both but more soul. the Payback is the sh!t.

The last one of course.

I'm gonna say funk, but mostly just because the only songs I'm familiar with by him are funky.

why did you reply to a thread two years old?

Someone bumped it by voting in the poll before nsw posted.

Yeah, it had been bumped, so I figured, what the hell...

soul

Can't he be both?

"The godfather of Soul in the belly of the beast, Smokin' that dust at St. anthony's feast"
- Beastie Boys

"He's got Soul, he's Super Bad" He took some time to "make it funky", but then it got a little "too funky in here" so he brought in some "Soul Power". Then he demanded we all "Get up and drive your funky soul" So...

Hard to say really.

He started off his career in Soul and later helped pioneer Funk. He also is the Father of Hiphop. A lot of hiphop tracks are James brown beats!!!

Funk I believe.

I'd classify his music as R n B too.

Both. You listen to 'Live at the Apollo' and tell me that's funk. It was soul up to the lates 60's at least.

and whoever said Clinton, he was P-Funk. That be the pure/psychedelic/parliament funk. different thing bay-beh

winner.

He started off with some great soul numbers, and kept the soul element throughout, but too much of his work is so damn funky I can't choose otherwise.

Also, everyone should listen to the album The Payback if they haven't yet. Some of the best "background music" (in a good way) ever, and one of the ultimate documents as far as superb groove-work.

to quote mac,

wrong.

lol, no it isn't, Gil Scott-Heron is.

I'm a musical pluralist who thinks there is a lot of categorical hair-splitting going on. To me it's all R&B.

In the early 70s several future members of P-Funk were in James Brown's backup band after he fired veteran JB band leader Maceo Parker and the rest of the charter members of the JB band.

Practically overnight Brown hired Bootsy Collins, Bobby Byrd, Catfish Collins, Clayton Gunnels, Frank Waddy, Robert McCollough and Jabo Strarks to replace the JB band. Prior to James Brown, Bootsy and Catfish were playing gigs at an Atlanta eatery and bar called the Wine Cellar under the name of the Dap Kings and several other names. They were all still in their teens and Brown hired these young upstarts without an audition the and basically trained them to play his music.

Brown had only heard Bootsy and Catfish's band once by happenstance before he made his impulsive decision to hire these young turks, but Brown's musical acumen proved to be brilliant. This younger, rawer sound of the James Brown band was the template for most funk music for the next two decades.

And nearly all those James Brown players did a tour of duty on George Clinton's Mothership, following their hitch with the James Brown Band. George Clinton pyschedelicized funk but there were R&B bands that predated Clinton's fusion of psychedelica and funk, most notably the Chambers Brothers and Sly Stone. But it was James Brown who was truly the Godfather all funk musicians.

Early in the 1960s James Brown invented the deeply grooved drum and bass sound and the repetative but complex one chord vamp that was the basis for all funk and much of hip-hop. His contributions to both modern funk and hip hop were enormous. The earliest hip hop samples by Chuck D, Public Enemy, and Afrika Bambaataa were borrowed from James Brown grooves.

Today my parents happend to reveal that they didn't know what Funk was, never even heard of the word (!)
So my father asked whether it had anything to do with Motown, and I said no, that's Soul
so I said something like: wait, I'll get my notebook and then I'll show you some music by James Brown... You know? James Brown the Godfather of
and then I stopped, irritated by the title.. Soul

however, I showed them James Brown as a Funk artist, just 2 hours ago, and therefore I go with Funk
(soulful Funk, if that makes sense?)

that would be a good answer to the question "soulful funk, if that makes sense?" rather than to my parents, never having heard of Funk
they have soul, that's not the point

If it's Soul It's Laid Back. If it's Funk you can't sit down.

Soul moves your heart and mind. Funk moves your body!

Not strictly true.

Northern does both.

I have got a couple of Northern Soul albums recently. Unfortunately they are not tagged well :(

Wigan Casino 25th Anniversary
Wigan Pier vol 24 Mixed By Micky B
The Wigan Casino Story.

The Wigan Pier stuff isn't Northern. It's House?
The Wigan Casino Story is a great album with some solid Northern standards mostly from the late 60's.
The Golden Torch Story is one I'd recommend to anyone and one of the best IMO. Worth getting as a starter.

So it is- blame my old man, he sent me some stuff through and he said it was all Northern Soul :(

Got a link to The Golden Torch story at all?

I'll post a link to a compilation of Northern standards to give you a taster tomorrow.
I've been on the sauce tonight so I'd probably make an arse of it.

I always thought of James' music as "progressive soul" or an "extension" of soul which is what funk was. Now because of everybody's insistence that all music be labeled into sub-categories, he's considered more funk because most of his songs consist of hypnotic, hardcore funk grooves rather than traditional song form that soul would fall under.

I voted "Soul," My era for Soul is in the 60's & 70's. My favorite vocal groups are The Stylistics, Chi-lites, Blue Magic, & Harold Marvin & The Blue Notes. And my favorite female singers are Marilyn McCoo, Dionne Warwick, & Carla Thomas - I know they're not strictly Soul, they also do other R&B and Pop. They may not be the first to come to mind when talking about Soul but they're my favorite.