I'm the president of this election and I'm starting a Funk HOF. The rules are simple: You must've made some form of funk music. And you must have at least 2 albums to qualify for this Hall. Sorry, no one hit or one album wonders allowed. Just the true and pure funk artists. Since there's a limit amount of true funk artists out there, the first inauguration will feature 6 inductees. Each year after that 3 or 4. I know, I know! But what can you do for such a rare art form. So here's a list of who I think should be our first inductees:

1. James Brown
2. Sly & The Family Stone
3. Parliament-Funkadelic
4. Prince
5. Earth, Wind & Fire
6. The Ohio Players

How's that for a list?

I'm the president of this election and I'm starting a Funk HOF. The rules are simple: You must've made some form of funk music. And you must have at least 2 albums to qualify for this Hall. Sorry, no one hit or one album wonders allowed. Just the true and pure funk artists. Since there's a limit amount of true funk artists out there, the first inauguration will feature 6 inductees. Each year after that 3 or 4. I know, I know! But what can you do for such a rare art form. So here's a list of who I think should be our first inductees:

1. James Brown
2. Sly & The Family Stone
3. Parliament-Funkadelic
4. Prince
5. Earth, Wind & Fire
6. The Ohio Players

How's that for a list?

The REAL 1st year inauguration:

James Brown
Jimi Hendrix
Miles Davis
Sly & The Family Stone
Parliament-Funkadelic
The Meters
Stevie Wonder


All of The Funk Hall of Fame's later years can be use to vote in everyone else that have been overlook because of THESE^ artists/bands that had to be in first.

TonyVanDam said:

I disagree with your first year picks

LoveIsTheMessage said:

Jimi Hendrix is NOT a mistake. Ernie Isley, Eddie Hazel, Rick James, Prince, Roger Troutman, and (especially) Jesse Johnson all became funk guitarists because of Jimi.

And lets not forgot about Jimi's Band of Gypsys.
[Edited 3/25/10 15:34pm]

TonyVanDam said:

Jimi is a big influence but he isnt the sole reason they became guitarists. you act like black guitarists didnt exist before him.

The REAL 1st year inauguration:

James Brown
Jimi Hendrix
Miles Davis
Sly & The Family Stone
Parliament-Funkadelic
The Meters
Stevie Wonder


The 2nd year entries:

Bootsy Collins
Larry Graham/Graham Central Station
Curtis Mayfield
The Isley Brothers (3+3 line-up)
Bar-Kays


The 3rd year entries:

Earth Wind & Fire
The Ohio Players
Kool & The Gang
Average White Band
The Commodores


The 4th year entries:

Cameo
The Gap Band
Rick James
Prince
Roger/Zapp


All of The Funk Hall of Fame's later years can be use to vote in everyone else that have been overlook because of THESE^ artists/bands that had to be in first.

TonyVanDam said:

Jimi is a big influence but he isnt the sole reason they became guitarists. you act like black guitarists didnt exist before him.

TonyVanDam said:

No women?

Timmy84 said:

How soon could you really put Chaka Khan, Teena Marie, LeBelle, & The Pointer Sisters in The Funk HOF, especially if The Funk is mostly male-driven?!?

TonyVanDam said:

I don't care, they need to be RECOGNIZED. And you sure are forgetting about Ms. Betty Davis.
[Edited 3/25/10 16:06pm]

Timmy84 said:

OFF-TOPIC: Who was THE first female artist to ever be placed in the R&R HOF? And what year did it happen?

TonyVanDam said:

Well anybody who don't know that can google it. I know it's Auntie Ree, so?

You know all these Hall of Fames are for money purposes anyway.

minneapolisFunq said:

Don't get it twisted. I didn't say it like THAT^. Jimi has that specific style of guitar playing that not only added a chapter in rock & roll history, but also because part of the prequel to The Funk history.

TonyVanDam said:

but you said they became "funk guitarists" because of jimi when funkier guitarists existed well before jimi.

4example

Roger Troutman plays nothing like jimi and if you watched some interviews of his you would see that he has a very wide range of influence and i would say someone like chuck berry had more of an affect on him than jimi.

minneapolisFunq said:

Chuck Berry played a big role in R&B guitar too. You just never hear him as much. That's why when Roger put out "It Doesn't Really Matter", he yelled out "DO YOU REMEMBER CHUCK BERRY?!" I don't think Jimi was at all mentioned. And Chuck & Jimi are actually two very maligned heroes in black music, rarely mentioned among blacks but of course the mainstream white community often say their names first.

Betty Davis also shouted Chuck's name in "They Say I'm Different" (and Jimi in "F.U.N.K.").

I wouldn't necessarily put Jimi in the annals of funk either. He died before even doing something like that but who knows what he was preparing to do in the months prior to his death.

Curtis Mayfield's guitar playing played a big role in Jimi's guitar playing. So did the Motown guitarists and the blues musicians (including Ike Turner, who was playing guitar around '53). And let's not forget Johnny "Guitar" Watson if we're gonna mention the role of guitars in R&B music because he, more than even Chuck Berry, helped to define the instrument that Jimi would make his trademark and Johnny actually became a funk musician in the '70s.
[Edited 3/25/10 17:12pm]

TonyVanDam said:

TonyVanDam said:

but you said they became "funk guitarists" because of jimi when funkier guitarists existed well before jimi.

4example

Roger Troutman plays nothing like jimi and if you watched some interviews of his you would see that he has a very wide range of influence and i would say someone like chuck berry had more of an affect on him than jimi.

Betty Davis, Chaka Khan, Labelle, Marva Whitney & Lyn Collins would definitely be first-class inductees.

It was definately mostly male driven. When I think of the records I bought while I was growing up during the era, 95% of the albums I bought were either male groups or male artists with the exception of Donna Summer (who was a disco artist) and Teena Marie. When I bought a female artist back then, I usually bought their 45 because I knew that a lot of the other songs on their album were going to be slow songs. But with the male artists and groups like Rick James, Prince, Cameo, Lakeside, etc., I knew the majority of songs on the albums were going to be jams.

From what I've observed about my personal favorites when it comes to female artists, is that behind every great female artists, there was a great man. Donna Summer (I'm not saying she was a funk artist at all but she had albums where the majority of the songs were jams) had Georgio Moroder behind her. Teena Marie had Rick James behind her and after she left Rick James and the Motown connection and went over to Epic, she started doing much more slow stuff than jams. Vanity 6, Sheila E., and folks like that had Prince behind them. Trinere had Pretty Tony and Freestyle behind her. When Janet Jackson was doing her earlier albums and had either male family members behind her such as her father or her brothers and later Jam and Lewis, she was making hard hitting jams but I remember when she said her next album ("Janet" at the time in the early 1990s) was going to have more input from her and was going to be a more "female" type album, it was much weaker than her previous work. Jody Watley had Andre Cymone behind her and as a member of Shalamar, she had the Solor Connection behind her. These are the type of albums I bought from female artists back then. I didn't buy them for those reasons, I just simply bought them because I knew those particular artists would have an album full of jams. It wasn't until years later, that I noticed that they all seemed to have males behind them.

Klymaxx however, was THE exception. Those ladies were BAD. They were the first group of ladies that I personally observed that could throwdown hard as hell without a man behind them at all. And when Bernadette Cooper put together Madame X later, that album was bad as hell too. Patrice Rushen was another lady I noticed was great but didn't pay attention to her much until I was an adult and bought some of her full albums instead of just her 45s like I did growing up. When I got those albums home and listened to them, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see so many jams on them.

That's why I just laugh when I think of all these male shit hoppers who call themselves so "hard" but don't have even one fast jam under their belt. Hell, they ain't nothing but a bunch of sissy asses because when I was growing up, most male artists were making fast paced jams except for folks like Freddie Jackson making a bunch of wimpy ass sissy shit. I put those supposedly "hard" ass shit hoppers in that sissy ass category too because their stuff ain't even as hard as the weak ass "Jam Tonight" which I guess Freddie must have thought was a jam.
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[Edited 3/25/10 19:48pm]

minneapolisFunq said:

No mention of The Brothers Johnson? Rufus Thomas? Slave? Eddie Kendricks? Johnny Guitar Watson? Lakeside? Mass Production? STANLEY CLARKE?
And a funk list that includes Miles Davis but doesn't even give a nod to Lyn Collins or Betty Davis is SOME BULLSHIT and can't be trusted. [b]Betty Davis is responsible for any funk that came from Miles Davis.
Looks like Rolling Stones lists up in here...funk "by-the-numbers" n' shit. [/b]
[Edited 3/26/10 3:12am]

BlaqueKnight said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Excuse you Mr. 10 To 12 posts Behind Schedule, but Timmy84 already reminded us (including me) that Betty Davis need to be in The Funk HOF straight away.