jacktheimprovident said:

Hey Bulldog is cool

BlaqueKnight said:

See I knew we'd get at least one playa hater. Yeah, I know that on the surface we're talking about 4 white guys from Liverpool. But remember, they were influenced by Soul music as well as Pop or anything else that turned them on. If you were to really LISTEN to the songs and grooves, you'll see that they had some funky stuff.

You seem to think that Funk is all about JB, Sly, George, or whatever. But white guys can get on the good foot too, and the Beatles proved that.

My vote for funkiest Beatles track: "It's All Too Much".

I always felt that the Beatles, Elvis and the Rolling Stones made it big on music blacks started and then later rejected. Even now it kills me that John Mayer is way more soulful and funky than lets say... Usher. I have no problem with it just an observation.

NWF said:

Right on! People around here think that only black people can play funky music. They are so wrong. The Beatles will live on forever. People will be talking about them and playing there music 200 years from now.

cool dudes

I wouldn't necessarily call them funky either. But they did verge on funky a few times.

..Any of you hip to a band called DAG from the mid 90's?..they were a white group from Texas who had the Curtis and Sly sound down w/ a little P thrown in. Their guitarist also played a little like Ernie Isley. Doug from King's X praised them and wanted to work with them.

They were a good group but their label gave them no push.

"Lady Madonna" is pretty funky. That song really moves!

I <333 the beatles!! Listen to "Happiness Is A Warm Gun"!!!!! ITS GREAT!

XxKristinaxX said:

"Happiness is a warm gun Mama!"

UCantHavaDaMango said:

HAHA isnt that song so amazzzzing!!? I LOVE IT!!!

BlaqueKnight said:

Tessa said:

Let's not get carried away here. Imo, there is a difference between your actual technical 'funk' a la JB, where everything is on 'the ONE', and just being 'funky', where there is a general loose, funky feel, but the stress of the beat is NOT on the one. Sorry to get technical here.

I think the Beatles made the occasional 'funky' track. But they didn't come on like the Average White Band (an example of a good white, post-James Brown funk band), let alone Funkadelic. The Beatles had their own sound that they added a little funky spicing to, from time to time, mainly based around McCartney's sometimes funky basslines.

BlaqueKnight said:

Now Blaque, u know were tight. But dig, the Beatles had elements of funk in some of their cuts. Sir Paul was a huge James Jamerson and tried to emulate his style on some cuts. John Lennon, who came up with the hook to Bowie's "Fame", which so happens to be one of the funkiest songs, would display a funkiness. Especially in his vocals. Lennon's "I Am The Walrus" to me, is very funky. Here's a few Beatle cuts that I classify as funky. Were The Beatles a funk band? No. But they definately had funk elements here and there. They, like most British bands from the 60's, WORSHIPED American Black music. All of their musical heroes were black. They mentioned this in priint several times.

I Am The Walrus
Sgt Pepper (reprise version)
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Taxman
Come Together

blackguitaristz said:

Having elements of funk and being funky are two completely different things. It does not make me a "player hater" for not relaxing my definition of funky to extend to every little person that laid their thumb on a bass or dropped it on the one (NWF) nor did I even bring up the issue of race (Empress), so both of you kindly refrain from trying to interpret what I am thinking. I can speak for myself just fine. Sure, they had moments of funk in their music here and there; hell, so does Marilyn Manson. That does not make them "funky". You can hear funk in Prince's records when he's not trying. You can here Jesse getting funky on his hardest rock tracks. Paul? Nope. Sorry, I'm not copping to the Beatles as funky. Later for that mess.

I would say the opposite. They never did funk, but they were funky a couple of times. Literally, a couple

BlaqueKnight said:

I can dig it. I know "I Am The Walrus" is more of a "funk" song than anything else. The Beatles were an influence on Parliament/Funkadelic to some degree. The Beatles taught many a lot about experiementing in the studio. Which George, Bernie and Hazel ate up like candy. Two of the greatest and most creative "funk" artists ever, P-Funk and Prince, were influenced by The Beatles. I give it up to The Beatles, for many different reasons. They were paramount. Just Like Hendrix was paramount to the electric guitar.

Empress said:

Nobody on here thinks that only white folks can play funk. Obviously u just got on board around here with that silly ass staement. U don't have a clue about anybody on this site. Cuz if u did player, u wouldn't have ever made that comment. And ironically, u showed something of yourself more than these "people" u were refering to.

blackguitaristz said:

Oh, my correction. Nobody on here thinks that only "black" folks can play funk is what my post should have stated. Everything else in the post is true fact.

blackguitaristz said:

yep.

I think we're getting into a little bit of petty semantics here. No, the Beatles weren't funky like the JBS, P-funk or Sly and they by no stretch of the imagination were a pure "funk" band, but they could be and were "funky" more often than they were given credit for, just as they were not the utmost exemplars or envelope pushers of Hard rock yet they could and would rock pretty hard when they wanted to. in a general sense one can say something "rocks" or that such and such a band "rocks out" without literally referring to hard rock, just as something can be "Funky" without being "pure funk". "rocking" or "getting funky" are attributes that transcend genre categories.

The Beatles were the Best in the WORLD do you hear me? The World!

jacktheimprovident said:

I was gonna name Hey Bulldog. My parents were teens back around then, they told me that you rarely heard Beatles songs at discos but Hey Bulldog was one of the few played. Such a cool groove!

the only funk I hear is the drums, a nice boom boom bamp here and there, like on Sexy Sade and I Am The Walrus, maybe the bass of Taxman but I agree with Blaque it's not enough to say that the beatles had the funk like the title of the thread seems to imply, I respect the beatles a lot, i know for a fact they had and influence on George and even Sly, but people can't give them credit for everything, they had some nice rhythem at times but they were not "pretty funky" because "pretty funky" means something different in my opinion

The Beatles are as funky as a new bar of soap.

wlcm2thdwn said:[quote]The Beatles were the Best in the WORLD do you hear me? The World![/quote]

NWF, I've been a fan of the Beatles since I was a young kid growing up. My oldest brother is a HUGE Beatles fan, and their music was always playing in my house.