There is a recent thread devoted to KC and the Sunshine Band.As we discussed the band and their new 'Unsung' episode,it became clear that there is some confusion on what to label them as....a funk band or a disco band.I feel that many songs from that era (mid to late 70s) are often miscategorized.How do we distinguish between a "funk" song and a "disco" song? Is KC and Sunshine Band really a "disco group"? They don't seem to think so.

Anyway,let's have this discussion now.....

When I think of disco, I think European stuff like Cerrone and Silver Convention. Or songs like The Hustle by Van McCoy and Superman by Herbie Mann. Lots of strings and a steady repetitious beat. Maybe some 1970s female acts like The Ritchie Family. The 1st Shalamar album is disco. I don't consider Miss You by the Stones, Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry & Black Betty by Ram Jam disco. Paul McCartney songs like Silly Love Songs and Goodnight Tonight are disco to me. Some of that Gamble & Huff music is disco to me too. Soul is like 1960s music like Otis Redding and Jerry Butler.

[Edited 10/14/15 23:08pm]

funk is generally more syncopated and intricate in its polyrhythms, as well as more gritty and earthy.

Disco is syncopated, Four-on-the-floor and is heavily danced orientated. It's also a genre which was also made by European's like Boney M, Silver Convention, Giorgio Moroder, the Bee Gees et al. I think it was also more of a pop type genre with the success of Saturday Night Fever. Disco also kinda invented the extended mix thanks to producers like Tom Moulton. I think artists like Sylvester a few years previously would have been soul singers. Also most other R&B/Soul acts even those like Jerry Butler, Curtis and James were doing disco LPs so they were just following trends of the time. Also Gamble & Huff TSOP wasn't disco to me, it was more Barry White/Love Unlimited orchestral soul music.

Funk is much more "earthy", funk is James Brown and his affiliated acts, Sly Stone, George Clinton, Ohio Players, the Meters among others. You definitely can't fake the funk, I think there's something organic about it and when it was a hot musical genre, you didn't have like pop acts doing funk when a few years down the line they were doing disco records.

Soul, to me, is singing which is heavily gospelly/bluesy influenced, like Sam Cooke with the Night Beat LP, Otis, Al Green, Ben E King, Jerry Butler, Curtis, Donny, Aretha et al. Whilst Motown was a soul label, I think they crossed genres to be pop-soul when you had like the Supremes perform at the Copa for example. But they did have pure soul singers on Motown like Jimmy and his bro David Ruffin. Going back to Sam, I think if he was still alive we'd have seen much more soulful music from him ala Change is Gonna Come.

so,what would KC & The Sunshine Band be classified as?

To me, KC & The Sunshine band are disco, maybe pop/disco

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thetimefan said:

REAL Funk is a BLACK thing!

The rest was/is easily 'adaptable' for less naturally soulful people.

Ego101 said:

The rockers don't like any of it.

dancerella said:

thetimefan said:

To me, KC & The Sunshine band are disco, maybe pop/disco

They're pretty damn funky though. Was he the white version of Sly Stone?

There is a white version of Sly who is it?

Did you notice the fro's on 75% of the band?

phunkdaddy said:

Ego101 said:

REAL Funk is a BLACK thing!

The rest was/is easily 'adaptable' for less naturally soulful people.

KC and the☀️ Band were acceptable to blacks. His love for soul music was authentic. Nothing fake about it. I remember as a kid my mother loved them too. I remember they were on a special on NBC one year and she got a kick out of KC jamming so hard he kicked his shoes off and kept playing. In elementary school we used to talk about KC's and his horn section. I don't see how these guys can be labeled purely disco. It wasn't their fault they got lumped into it anymore than Chic. Chic was actually closer to it than KC. Chic's first hit Dance,Dance,Dance is pure disco. Great topic Soul Alive.

[Edited 10/16/15 16:49pm]

Since the "death" of disco in late 1979 is the reason I searched and discovered black radio and listened to it almost exclusively for years afterwards, I consider most disco as polished funk with glitter on it. Funk was the closest sounding thing to disco and I grew to love it even more than disco. I much prefer funk during and after the disco era over funk prior to the disco era and it's influence. Disco's influence seemed to get rid of a lot of the jazz sounding influence in funk, the tempo seemed to be faster, and the funk during the disco era of the 1970s and the funk in the early 1980s, after disco's "death" sounded a lot less primitive like it had moved completely away from the late 1960s sound that the early 1970s seemed to resemble. Every decade seems to bleed a little off of the previous decade for the first few years before it gets it's own sound and disco seemed to distance funk from the previous decade when it was in it's infancy stage and make it even better.

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In the mid to late 1980s when R&B first started to stray from the disco tempo and a lot of it's influences of the drums and bass being the main thing that drives the song, that's when I first started bitching about music. And when the 1990s arrived and the tempo slowed down even more to the point that everything on R&B radio was either slow or midtempo, I said "fuck it" and just took all current R&B stations off my dial. House music of the late 1980s and early 1990s which dominated the black gay clubs was a decent alternative since it seemed to sound a little like a reincarnation of disco. But when it fell off and trance took it over, I said enough and dropped new music altogether. So actually, in a way you could say that the further something sounds from disco, the more I hate it.

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[Edited 10/17/15 8:05am]

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Kc Sunshine band sounded totally different from guys like Ohio Players, Kool Gang, EWF and those guys. Their sound was similar to tje band Sun too me for some reason. Which I have rated as a 2nd to 3rd tier funk band.

I'll start here because this why I believe KC Sunshine isn't a funk band... damn good excellent soul / disco band but those guy weren't straight up funk.

As LBC metioned sound.... what distinguishes a genre or an emerging genre from others, voicing / chord progression? Funk music is based on the 12 bar blues (pentatonic plus blues notes) scale. The most common chords played in Funk music are AM7, AM9, E9, E7, and E7+9. You hear these chords (sometimes transposed chords) through out James, Brown, Parliment, Ohio Players, Slave, Cool & the Gang, Commodors and countless other Funk bands. We can thank James Brown and George Clinton for this because their chords /progression became the staple for other Funk band songs.

The chords I've listed above have one common denominator, they're dominant chords. Funk like the blues, doesn't really adhere to the harmonic principles of Western diatonic music. Diatonic, doesn't understand I and IV chords, they don't make any sense . Funk music is based on the 12 bar blues all the chords are dominant 7th chords, and the scales are based around pentatonic plus blues notes. So, funk and blues are based on African rhythms and harmonies, filtered through Western instruments.

KC were and are a soul-disco band. Like so many bands you can hear a lot of influences in KC's sound... as I mentioned in another thread, KC was never a quintessential Funk band.

I know some folks are rolling there eyes saying... I don't know a damn thing about music theory so what the fuck are you talking about? LBC said," Kc Sunshine band sounded totally different from guys like Ohio Players, Kool Gang, EWF..." You don't have to know music theory... your ears tell you when you hear a new genre / sound emerging. When Funk took off.... it sho' didn't sound like anyting Soul Motown, Stax or Alantic Records were putting out . Soul is also blues based. The chord progression, transposing, inversion of chords gave Funk its sound... that distinguished it from "Soul / R&B. (IMHO)

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[Edited 10/17/15 17:28pm]

TD3 said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

phunkdaddy said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Kc Sunshine band sounded totally different from guys like Ohio Players, Kool Gang, EWF and those guys.

Their sound was similar to tje band Sun too me for some reason. Which I have rated as a 2nd to 3rd tier funk band.

I have to disagree with you on Sun. Sun was a funky band particularly
on their first 3 albums Live On,Dream On , Sunpower, and Sunburn. They started
to fall off after Sunburn because some of the members were cut loose after their
second album and later became Dayton. They just seemed to lose juice after Sunburn and the grit that the original members had. I think Sun had a totally different distinctive sound than KC and the Sunshine Band. You're right though in one aspect. They weren't top tier but pretty damn funky nevertheless. Just my

LittleBLUECorvette said:

phunkdaddy said:

I have to disagree with you on Sun. Sun was a funky band particularly
on their first 3 albums Live On,Dream On , Sunpower, and Sunburn. They started
to fall off after Sunburn because some of the members were cut loose after their
second album and later became Dayton. They just seemed to lose juice after Sunburn and the grit that the original members had. I think Sun had a totally different distinctive sound than KC and the Sunshine Band. You're right though in one aspect. They weren't top tier but pretty damn funky nevertheless. Just my

Maybe Sun was a bad example cuz I listen to them more than KC.

Nice Post - TD3

FUNK!

I will say again.. I get lifted is FONKY! the 2 note little Bass figure is The Bomb!

Just like any simple James Brown Groove ie: The Big Payback or Hot pants.

They Just laid it down in the pocket 'Perfectly'!!!

That being said..

NO they were'nt bringing the Funk Hardcore ie: Parliament Fukadelic, OhioPlayers,

Mandrill, Sly, JB ect.. But,

IMO they still have a rightful place in the Funk/Soul/Disco/ catagory.

Much like The Mighty, Mighty HEATWAVE!

Here's some disco

Ego101 said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

I always felt "I Get Lifted" (no pun) was lifted from James Brown "In The Middle."

I don't have that JB album! Fire tho

Cinny said:

Nice Find!

I hear where you're comin' from!

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Ego101 said:

Nice Post - TD3

FUNK!

I will say again.. I get lifted is FONKY! the 2 note little Bass figure is The Bomb!

Just like any simple James Brown Groove ie: The Big Payback or Hot pants.

They Just laid it down in the pocket 'Perfectly'!!!

That being said..

NO they were'nt bringing the Funk Hardcore ie: Parliament Fukadelic, OhioPlayers,

Mandrill, Sly, JB ect.. But,

IMO they still have a rightful place in the Funk/Soul/Disco/ catagory.

Much like The Mighty, Mighty HEATWAVE!

I always felt "I Get Lifted" (no pun) was lifted from James Brown "In The Middle."

in my opinion, DISCO=KC and The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, The Village People, The BEE GEES, George McCrae

Funk=Sly and The Family Stone, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Bar-Kays, Graham Central Station, Kool and The Gang,

Soul=Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight and The Pips, Curtis Mayfield, Sam and Dave,