Could The Funk Brothers've survived Disco?

[jboy88]

With all the criticism of the '70s Motown sound [[or lack thereof), I wonder if Motown had stayed in Detroit, would the Funk Brothers been able to contribute to the disco era! Based on the stuff they did on the duets of The Four tops &The Supremes and Valerie Simpson, they would have fit in nicely with the Quiet Storm genre. But would Disco have disbanded the Funks if moving west didn't?

[Jimi LaLumia]

Funk brothers provided the basic building blocks of disco,as did Motown;
if the Motown sound had continued and evolved,disco might have taken a different form, but in the 60's discoteques[[not sure about that spelling) Motown recordings were 'disco';
it was the 70's down tempo,jazzy ,west coast Motown that opened the door for ex Motown alumni like Barry White,etc to come with the new dance sound,the new dance records,with The Spinners[[Atlantic Records period) being early proponents of the 'new direction;
in my opinion, the first real disco record, 1966,"Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart",an extended version of which would have set the world on fire;
same is true of "Dancing Machine" by The Jackson 5

[jboy88]

I always gave MFSB, Gamble & Huff the credit for for laying down the platform for the Disco era. With the lush orchestrations and the driving backbeat of the drums!

The Funk Brothers were quite versatile, but the sound and the styles were changing by 1973. Where would they've fit in among the bells and whistles?

[drewschultz88]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that they would have been fine based on the recordings that the Tops did with the Funk Brothers in the mid / late 1970s. Uriel Jones, Eddie Willis, Robert White, Earl Van Dyke, Bongo Brown, and Dennis Coffey were regular contributors to their Catfish era material. However, I don't think the prominence of the drum machine in the 80s was kind to any band...

[Jimi LaLumia]

lush orchestrations started with 60's Motown,and no doubt the Funksters would have adjusted to become the bells and whistles,just as they adjusted from "Please Mr.Postman" to Norman Whitfield's Temptations ground breakers[["Cloud Nine" is another pre-Disco Disco record, to me anyway)

[uptight]

And you had James Jamerson appearing on disco tracks by The Sylvers. I think the Funks would have fit right in, as they were already versatile with their jazz backgrounds. I mean, come on. The word "funk" in Funk Brothers already suggests that they helped lay the groundwork for disco.

[jboy88]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that they would have been fine based on the recordings that the Tops did with the Funk Brothers in the mid / late 1970s. Uriel Jones, Eddie Willis, Robert White, Earl Van Dyke, Bongo Brown, and Dennis Coffey were regular contributors to their Catfish era material. However, I don't think the prominence of the drum machine in the 80s was kind to any band...

OH YEAH!!! I forgot about Catfish! I have it on CD but it's not on my I-tunes[[ an over-site I intend to correct). Pistol Allen and Uriel Jones getting the pink slip for the drum machine is unimaginable!

[tomato tom]

The Fantastic Fours output on Westbound was the Funk Brothers as musicians on the backing tracks, no? Listen to Disco Pool Blues, or Hideaway, or Got To Have Your Love for example. They hit the disco charts at the time. AND, a darn more soulful too..Paulo xxx

[MIKEW-UK]

I see Dennis Coffey produced a lot of that album, and it was mixed by Tom Moulton.



Also Funk Brothers backed Dennis Coffey on Evolution on Sussex Records.... it's definitely funky and was played in discos at the time..


EVOLUTION

Recorded: 1970

Artist and Guitar: Dennis Coffey

Producer: Mike Theodore

Rhythm Section:

Funk Brothers:
Uriel Jones - drums
Pistol Allen - drums
Earl Van Dyke - keyboard
Bob Babbit - bass
Eddy "Bongo" Brown - congas
Jack Ashford - tambourine

Guitar Band:
Ray Monette [[Rare Earth), Joe Podorsek, Dennis Coffey.

cheers Mike

[Kamasu_Jr]

And you had James Jamerson appearing on disco tracks by The Sylvers. I think the Funks would have fit right in, as they were already versatile with their jazz backgrounds. I mean, come on. The word "funk" in Funk Brothers already suggests that they helped lay the groundwork for disco.

Wasn't it Jamerson's son on the Sylvers' Boogie Fever? Funk Brother Bob Babbitt did make the transition to disco. He played on Tony Orlando & Dawn's To Be With You album, which was a Disco affair. The Funks would have survived disco.

[Jimi LaLumia]

The funks would have shaped Disco; in a way, they did, in advance...

[jboy88]

OK, So I plead temporarily Insanity. Cause didn't the funks also play on the Dramatics and Enchantment's albums?

[stephanie]

All of the above and the pushing of Mary Scherrie and Susaye would have kept them in the disco market along with Ross's Love Hangover. I have seen Where do I Go from Here by the Supremes on some of the Motown disco compilations. Thank god for the Miracles ..Love Machine that kept Motown at the helm of disco.

[stephanie]

I forgot to mention that losing Smokey Robinson didnt seem to hurt the Miracles either I think Love Machine was their best selling single! I wish that this could have happened for them on a long term basis. Its amazing when Diana left the Supremes people associated them and her together but when Smokey left nobody cared.

[Jimi LaLumia]

Miracles never got the media profile that Supremes did;
and Motown was never at the helm of disco, always running behind the truck

[BayouMotownMan]

The 60s Funk Bros could have survived anything. In fact, those infectious beats gave birth to disco

[BayouMotownMan]

There wasn't nearly as much hoopla around the exodus of Smokey as there had been for Diana and the Supremes. Motown made the separation of Diana Ross and the Supremes a media event. Smokey left quietly. He was leaving two years earlier until Tamla Motown unearthed Tears of a Clown to huge sales in the UK, and Motown US followed suit stateside. It became their biggest hit prior to Love Machine. They were once again hot and in demand at major venues, so Motown and the other Miracles persuaded him to put off his departure and once again tour to take advantage of this. Actually some of their best work came after, like I Don't Blame You At All and the sumptuous Satisfaction, which didn't do well. By the time Smokey left, the group had cooled significantly, which made it more difficult to launch Smokey and the Miracles in separate careers. Diana left with a huge hit record, so the public was just more interested in how things would turn out.

[tamla617]

i dont think any style of music would have stumped the funks.they could play anything and still be the up there with the best.masters of their chosen profession

[drewschultz88]

OK, So I plead temporarily Insanity. Cause didn't the funks also play on the Dramatics and Enchantment's albums?

Yeah, they're on a lot of the Dramatics albums!

[soulster]

The Funk Brothers did do disco as individual session players, but if they had stayed in Detroit as a band, I think they could have gone into George Clinton's world of funk.

The Philadelphia session players, the ones who largely made up MFSB, the PIR house band, easily morphed into disco music.