Customer Reviews

History of Funk 4

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you can't fake the funk.the drums,boards,guitar solos and the thumping bass and the fat horns are real music.things that are badly missing from music today.i personally love all of the funk in your face series.the original long versions are on time.but vol 4 is my fav by a fro puff.hearing flutes&wah wah effects grooving to the funk is fantastic.beautiful time of music.and no it ain't disco or looping or sampling you either had the funk or you had to go.lots of fun.

"Funk" is when r&b essentially splintered into three camps in the late 1960's ... pop r&b (most Motown), soul (the Philly Sound plus others) and funk (James Brown, Stax, Southern musicians, etc ... eventually all over). Obviously I'm generalizing here as most great musicians could easily traverse from soul to funk and pop - sometimes in some song :-)

But this collection is obviously meant to give you a basic over-view of the best of FUNK ... and it mostly succeds. like many of Rhino's best packages - if you have 2,000 CD's, you probably already have all the tracks and more importantly, all the ones they could not license and keep the costs reasonable ... so you will still need some James Brown, some Tower of Power, and dozens more (I mean, who can live with a library of only 2 Earth, Wind & Fire songs?)... though you will have all the WILD CHERRY you will need ... is there a compilation of the 1970's that PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC is not on?

For beginners of casuals fans of Funk, this is a nice beginning but that's all it is ... I'm not sure any set can be comprehensive ... well, any set less than 20 volumes and need to include Motown, Atlantic, Philly, Stax, and a couple dozen other labels ...

You can't go wrong with any in the series as there are at least several MUST HAVE gems on each one but strangely, Volume 1 is the weakest of the set. You can actually pick up that one last if just can't do without it or better yet, skip it and pick up the 20 CD's you really need from James Brown, Sly & Family Stone, Parliment and of course later, Prince.

The sound quality is excellent - great job on remastering so these will replace a lot of weaker digital transfers.

Numbers 1 and 4 are my favorites! Great music for a party. How can "Got to give it up" NOT get you in a dancin' mood? Classics mixed with some lesser known gems like LOVE-U. If you like Prince, well here is where he got his inspiration.

This series is a fantastic overview of the funk era. Vol 1/2, 2, and 4 are my favourites.

Its fantastic to play any or all of these CDs, and they make great party mixes!