Funky Drummer
| "Funky Drummer (Part 1)" | |||||||||
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| Single by James Brown | |||||||||
| from the album In the Jungle Groove | |||||||||
| B-side | "Funky Drummer (Part 2)" | ||||||||
| Released | March 1970 | ||||||||
| Format | 7" | ||||||||
| Recorded | November 20, 1969, King Studios, Cincinnati, OH | ||||||||
| Genre | Funk | ||||||||
| Length |
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| Label |
King 6290 |
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| Writer(s) | James Brown | ||||||||
| Producer(s) | James Brown | ||||||||
| James Brown charting singles chronology | |||||||||
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 Drummerworld – Stubblefield breakdown of "Cold Sweat" and "Funky Drummer". |
"Funky Drummer" is a funk song recorded by James Brown and his band. The recording's drum break, performed by Clyde Stubblefield, is one of the most frequently sampled rhythmic breaks in hip hop and popular music.
"Funky Drummer" was recorded on November 20, 1969 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and originally released by King Records as a two-part 45 rpm single in March 1970. Despite rising to #20 on the R&B chart and #51 on the pop chart, it did not receive an album release until the 1986 compilation In the Jungle Groove.
The piece takes the form of an extended vamp, with individual instruments (mostly the tenor saxophones and organ) improvising brief licks on top. Brown's ad-libbed vocals on "Funky Drummer" are sporadic and declamatory, and are mostly concerned with encouraging the other band members.
As in the full-length version of "Cold Sweat" he announces the upcoming drum break, which comes late in the recording, with a request to "give the drummer some." He tells Stubblefield "You don't have to do no soloing, brother, just keep what you got... Don't turn it loose, 'cause it's a mother." Stubblefield's eight-bar unaccompanied "solo", a version of the riff he plays through most of the piece, is the result of Brown's directions; this break beat is one of the most sampled recordings in music.
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Wikipedia