[Harp-L] re: the difference between funk and blues



Chris, you seem to mistake my intent. I don't particularly care about the labels, but if you really want to know why that Freddie King tune could be seen as being between blues and funk I would actually give two responses. First, technically the bassist is not putting the beat on the 2 and 4 as is traditional with most blues, but the drummer is, therefore the polyrhythmic mix between the bass and the drums is creating an effect somewhere between a funk groove and a blues one. It's not on-the-one, but it's also not the blues shuffle. Second, it just has that feel as being heavily influenced in sonic texture and mood by the funk of the sixties and seventies. That's the way I hear it, which leads back to my last point: these genres do exist, but they are hard to really define, they tend to blend considerably and in the end it comes down once again to "I know it when I hear it".

Thanks for the links, they were nice. Though I think Miller's bass- line is more fusion/jazz-funk (he doesn't really lay it down quite as much as a pure funk band would). What I'd think of as a pure funk groove would be more like these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X26GN6D1YOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMfFpmJGCr4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC5QFSfBCQw&feature=related

As for Clapton, again, I don't particularly care about what genre anyone calls him, but I really don't think it's a stretch to say that most of his career and his greatest successes came in a more rock/pop vein than in a blues vein. And indeed, I don't see it as all that far fetched to point out that someone like Guy was part of the culture where the blues formed and was created whereas Clapton was not inherently a part of that culture. He may have immersed himself in it and became a part of it, but that's different from being of it to begin with.




()() JR "Bulldogge" Ross () () `----'






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