On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> it's a great list, david, but i pick brown (as i did in an earlier
> post), if only because he all but birthed soul, funk, and hip
> hop--hell, you can probably throw disco in there as well. i know that
> by making such a claim i leave myself open to all kinds of nitpicking
> (sp?), but jb cut a mighty wide swath through his half of the century.
He sure did, and while he definitely gave birth to funk, I think it's an
overstatement to say he did the same for soul and hip hop. Clyde
McPhatter was most likely the original soul man (goin' all the way back to
1950 when he cut "Do Something For Me" with the Dominoes), and Ray Charles
was the music's most influential early force. His earliest
gospel-influenced recordings date a few years before JB's earliest stuff.
As for hip hop, sure JB was (and still is) a major influence, but I think
it's a bit of a stretch that he gave birth to the form -- it didn't really
come into being until Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa started rappin' over
the breaks while spinnin' discs at block parties in the South Bronx during
the mid-70s.--don
