New Orleans & Da Fonk

So where is Funk born? Is it James Brown and his band? George Clinton and Parliament/Funkedelic? Sly Stone and Larry Graham with The Family Stone? Maybe even Booker T and the MG's? Or is it New Orleans? If we use a timeline I think you can make a case for all of these at the same time but you will notice that the first 4 choices are just bands while the last is a whole city. I submit that nowhere else does Funk become the dominant music form so early in the game, as it did here in The Crescent City. I'd say that it is at least in part because we already had the roots of Funk here in our music and the transition was an easy and natural one for us. Even back into the 50's you can point to some Brass Band music and Professor Longhair as proto-Funk and certainly by 1960 some of Lee Dorsey's stuff is pretty damn funky. Like Jazz, R&B, and Rock n' Roll before it, I think the case is strong that Da Fonk starts here.

These songs are recorded between 1965 and 1975.

New Orleans & Da Fonk by Kingcake on Mixcloud