Brit Funk
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Brit Funk
Brit funk (or Britfunk) is a musical style that has its origins in the British music scene of the late 1970s and which remained popular into the 1980s. It mixes elements from jazz, funk, soul, urban dance rhythms and pop hooks. The scene originated in southern England and spread with support from DJs including DJ Froggy, Greg Edwards, Robbie Vincent, Chris Hill and Colin Curtis. Major funk acts included Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, Average White Band, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Carl Douglas, Hot Chocolate, the Delegation, Hi-Tension, Light of the World, Level 42, Central Line, the Pasadenas, Beggar and Co and Soul II Soul. The genre also influenced 1980s new wave/pop groups such as Culture Club, Bow Wow Wow, Pigbag, Dexys Midnight Runners and Haircut 100. Name and characteristics The term Brit funk evolved from the club DJs and James Hamilton of ''Record Mirror'' whose column had a major influence in launching new records. Brit funk was a fusion of R&B, funk, soul music ...
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Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first bea ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ...
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Dexys Midnight Runners
Dexys Midnight Runners (currently officially Dexys, their former nickname, styled without an apostrophe) are an English pop rock band from Birmingham, with soul influences, who achieved major commercial success in the early to mid-1980s. They are best known in the UK for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which peaked at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, as well as six other top-20 singles. "Come On Eileen" also topped the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and with extensive airplay on MTV they are associated with the Second British Invasion. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys went through numerous personnel changes over the course of three albums and 13 singles, with only singer/songwriter/co-founder Kevin Rowland remaining in the band through all of the transitions and only Rowland and "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone) appearing on all of the albums. By 1985, the band consisted only of Rowland and long-standing members Helen O'Hara (violin) and Billy Adams (gui ...
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Pigbag
Pigbag were a British post-punk band, best known for their instrumentals, active between 1980 and 1983. Origin and formation Pigbag were formed in Cheltenham in late 1980 by Chris Hamlin, a fashion student at Cheltenham Art College. Hamlin recruited multi-instrumentalist Roger Freeman, an old friend from his hometown of Birmingham, along with Chris Lee on trumpet and James Johnstone, a guitarist, record shop assistant and newcomer to the alto sax, for initial jam sessions which would eventually evolve into Pigbag. The group would jam in parks and various other places, but their usual practice space was Hamlin's house, Beech House, which still stands on the corner of St James's Square and St George's Place in Cheltenham. After a couple of months they decided to expand the line-up, adding a rhythm section and rehearsing more seriously. They recruited Andrew "Chip" Carpenter on drums and Mark "Miff" Smith on bass, both old school friends of Johnstone's, and former members of t ...
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Bow Wow Wow
Bow Wow Wow are an English new wave band, created by manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980. McLaren recruited members of Adam and the Ants to form the band behind 13-year-old Annabella Lwin on vocals. They released their debut EP '' Your Cassette Pet'' in 1980, and had their first UK top 10 hit with "Go Wild in the Country" in 1982. The band's music was characterized by a danceable new wave sound that drew on a Burundi beat provided by Dave Barbarossa on drums, as well as the subversive, suggestive, and sometimes exuberant lyrics sung and chanted by their teenage lead vocalist. Formation In 1980, former Sex Pistols manager McLaren persuaded David Barbarossa (also known as Dave Barbe), guitarist Matthew Ashman and bassist Leigh Gorman to leave Adam Ant and form a new group under McLaren's management. The band embarked on a six-month audition process for a lead singer. Talent scout Dave Fishel heard 13-year-old Lwin singing along to the radio at a West Hampstead dry cleaners wh ...
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Culture Club
Culture Club are an English pop band formed in London in 1981. The band comprises Boy George (lead vocals), Roy Hay (guitar and keyboards), Mikey Craig (bass guitar) and formerly included Jon Moss (drums and percussion). Emerging in the New Romantic scene, they are considered one of the most representative and influential groups of the 1980s. Led by singer and frontman Boy George, whose androgynous style of dressing caught the attention of the public and the media in the early 1980s, the band have sold more than 50 million records including over 6 million BPI certified records sold in the UK and over 7 million RIAA certified records sold in the US. Their hits include "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", "Time (Clock of the Heart)", "I'll Tumble 4 Ya", "Church of the Poison Mind", "Karma Chameleon", " Victims", "Miss Me Blind", " It's a Miracle", "The War Song", "Move Away", and "I Just Wanna Be Loved". In the UK they amassed twelve Top 40 hit singles between 1982 and 1999, inclu ...
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New Wave Music
New wave is a loosely defined music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. Later, critical consensus favored "new wave" as an umbrella term involving many popular music styles of the era, including power pop, synth-pop, ska revival, and more specific forms of punk rock that were less abrasive. It may also be viewed as a more accessible counterpart of post-punk. Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and a distinctive visual style in music videos and fashion. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop/rock act – and particularly those that employed synthesizers – were tagged as "new wave". Although new wave shares punk's do-it-yourself philosophy, the artists were more influenced by the styles of the 1950s along with the lighter s ...
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Soul II Soul
Soul II Soul are a British musical collective formed in London in 1988. They are best known for their two major hits; 1989's UK number five and US number eleven " Keep On Movin'", and its follow-up, the UK number one and US number four " Back to Life". They have won two Grammy Awards, and have been nominated for five Brit Awards—twice for Best British Group.Soul II Soul BRITS Profile
. BRIT Awards Ltd. Retrieved 26 January 2013


Career


1988–1989: Beginnings and club classics

The group initially attracted attention as a sound system some years prior to 1988 run by founder Jazzie B, playing at nights including ...
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Beggar And Co
Beggar and Co (also written Beggar & Co) are a British jazz-funk group formed by Kenny Wellington, David Baptiste and Neville 'Breeze' McKrieth, originally members of the group Light of the World. Overview Beggar and Co's first single was "(Somebody) Help Me Out", which entered the chart on 7 February 1981. It peaked at number 15 and spent a total of ten weeks on the UK Singles Chart. Their second release was "Mule (Chant No.2)", which entered the UK Singles Chart on 12 September 1981, and reached number 27, remaining in the chart for five weeks. Beggar and Co was also the featured brass section on a number of chart records for other artists, both as a horn section or as individual musicians. Recorded studio sessions included Spandau Ballet's hit single, " Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)". In 2007, the band released a live recording from The Jazz Cafe, ''Brass, Strings N' Things''. Since 2016, Breeze McKrieth, Kenny Wellington, David Baptiste became part of a pe ...
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Central Line (band)
Central Line was an R&B and soul band from London, England. They recorded two albums with Mercury in the 1980s and had two hit singles in the United States, as well as one Top 40 hit in their native country. Career The band was formed in March 1978, and were signed to Mercury Records early in 1979 by John Stainze. The original founding members were Steve Salvari, Camelle Hinds, Lipson Francis and Henry Defoe. Hinds, Francis and Defoe were previously in a band called TFB (Typical Funk Band), which had contained members that would go on to form Light of the World. TFB also contained the drummer Errol Kennedy, who later joined Imagination. Salvari joined TFB after the departure of Kenny Wellington in late 1976, as their second keyboard player and the band members then stood at Salvari, Hinds, Francis, Defoe and Kennedy. The band gigged for about a year then broke up. Francis and Defoe went to work with a bass player who was in Boney M., and Salvari and Hinds staying together to w ...
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Level 42
Level 42 is an English jazz-funk band formed on the Isle of Wight in 1979. They had a number of UK and worldwide hits during the 1980s and 1990s. Their highest-charting single in the UK was " Lessons in Love", which reached number three on the UK Singles Chart, and number 12 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, upon its release in 1986. An earlier single, " Something About You", was their most successful chart-wise in the United States, reaching number 7 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. After much success as a live and studio band in the 1980s, Level 42's commercial profile diminished during the early 1990s following a series of personnel changes and musical shifts. Disbanding in 1994, the band reformed in 2001. History 1979–1980: Prehistory and formation Mark King and the Gould brothers (Phil and Rowland, the latter generally known by his nickname Boon) were all brought up on the Isle of Wight and played together in various bands during their teenage years. Phil Goul ...
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Light Of The World (band)
Light of the World are a British jazz-funk band. Biography The band was formed in London in 1978. They were originally a forerunner of the late 1970s/early 1980s British jazz-funk movement. The band's name is taken from the 1974 Kool and the Gang album, '' Light of Worlds''. The original line-up consisted of Jean-Paul Maunick, drummer Everton McCalla, bassist Paul Williams, guitarist Neville McKreith, percussionist Chris Etienne, keyboardist Peter Hinds, trumpet player Kenny Wellington and saxophonist David Baptiste. The band's debut single "Swingin'", peaked at No. 45 in the UK Singles Chart. This was later followed up by two top 40 hits: a cover of the Bob Marley and the Wailers song "I Shot the Sheriff" (#40), and the double A-side single "I'm So Happy" / "Time" (#35). Their debut album was released in 1979 on Ensign Records Ensign Records was a record label started in 1976 by London-born Nigel Grainge, elder brother of UMG Chairman Sir Lucian Grainge. History Nigel ...
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