NBM Book Notes: The Funk Era and Beyond

THE FUNK ERA AND BEYOND: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON BLACK POPULAR CULTURE
Edited by Tony Bolden

Palgrave Macmillan
Published: August 2008
272 pages

The Funk Era and Beyond is the first scholarly collection to discuss funk music in America and delve into the intricate and complex nature of the word and its accompanying genre. While pleasure and performance are often presumed to be mutually exclusive of intellectuality, funk offers immense possibilities for a new critical rubric. As these writings demonstrate, funk is reflected in myriad forms and context and has been the catalyst for stylistic innovation. Contributors employ a multitude of methodologies to examine this unique musical field's relationship to African American culture and to music, literature, and visual art as a whole.


PRAISE

"Paying homage to the ancestors (Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Professor Longhair), sitting at the feat of the elders (George Clinton, Sly Stone, James Brown) and welcoming a brand new generation of griots headed by funkmaster Aaron McGruder, The Funk Era and Beyond fills the largest remaining gap in the conversation on African-American music. Bolden's collection is theoretically sophisticated, endlessly provocative and, best of all, a joy to read."
--Craig Werner, Professor and Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America

"This engaging book takes the reader on a journey across the multi-layered and multidisciplinary terrain of funk. This series of essays on music and the visual and literary arts reveal how 'da funk' represents innovation and aesthetic principles rooted in the Black vernacular, which defines the uniqueness of Black creativity. The Funk Era and Beyond is a must-read to understand funk as a philosophy, an attitude, a way of life, and more broadly, a cultural phenomena."--Portia K. Maultsby, Indiana University and editor of African American Music: An Introduction


TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Prelude from the Funkmaster * Sly Stone and the Sanctified Church--Mark Anthony Neal *

II. Introduction * Theorizing the Funk: An Introduction--Tony Bolden *

III. Inside the Funk Shop: Writings on the Funk Band Era *A Philosophy of Funk: The Politics and Pleasure of a Parliafunkadelicment Thang!--Amy Nathan Wright * James Brown: Icon of Black Power--Rickey Vincent * "The Land of Funk": Dayton, Ohio--Scot Brown * From the Crib to the Coliseum: An Interview with Bootsy Collins--Thomas Sayers Ellis *

IV.Impressions: Funkativity and Visual Art * Cane Fields, Blues Text-ure: An Improvisational--Karen Ohnesorge * Good Morning Blues--Maurice Bryan * Shine2.0: Aaron McGruder's Huey Freeman as Contemporary Folk Hero--Howard Rambsy II *

V. Funkintelechy: (Re)cognizing Black Writing *Alabama--Aldon Nielsen * Jazz Aesthetics and the Revision of Myth in Leon Forrest's There Is a Tree More Ancient than Eden-- Dana Williams * Living the Funk: Lifestyle, Lyricism, and Lessons in--Carmen Phelps * Modern and Contemporary Art of Black Women * Cultural Memory in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men Ondra Krouse-Dismukes*

VI. Imagine That: Fonky Blues Rockin and Rollin * Funkin' with Bach: The Impact of Professor Longhair on Rock'n'Roll--Cheryl L. Keys * Blue/Funk as Political Philosophy: The Poetry of Gil Scott-Heron--Tony Bolden


ABOUT TONY BOLDEN

Tony Bolden is Associate Professor of African American Literature and Culture, University of Alabama and is the author of Afro-Blue:Improvisations in African American Poetry and Culture