Funk Era and Beyond

TONY BOLDEN is Associate Professor of African American Literature and Culture, University of Alabama, USA.

'Paying homage to the ancestors (Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Professor Longhair), sitting at the feat of the elders (George Clinton, Sly Stone, James Brown) and welcoming a brand new generation of griots headed by funkmaster Aaron McGruder, The Funk Era and Beyond fills the largest remaining gap in the conversation on African-American music. Bolden's collection is theoretically sophisticated, endlessly provocative and, best of all, a joy to read.' Craig Werner, Professor and Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race& the Soul of America 'This engaging book takes the reader on a journey across the multi-layered and multidisciplinary terrain of funk. This series of essays on music and the visual and literary arts reveal how 'da funk' represents innovation and aesthetic principles rooted in the Black vernacular, which defines the uniqueness of Black creativity. The Funk Era and Beyond is a must-read to understand funk as a philosophy, an attitude, a way of life, and more broadly, a cultural phenomena.' - Portia K. Maultsby, Indiana University and editor of African American Music: An Introduction

• PART I: PRELUDE FROM THE FUNKMASTER Sly Stone and the Sanctified Church; M. A. Neal PART II. INTRODUCTION Theorizing the Funk: An Introduction; T. Bolden PART III. INSIDE THE FUNK SHOP: WRITINGS ON THE FUNK BAND ERA A Philosophy of Funk: The Politics and Pleasure of a Parliafunkadelicment Thang!; A. Nathan Wright James Brown: Icon of Black Power; Rickey Vincent 'The Land of Funk': Dayton, Ohio; S. Brown From the Crib to the Coliseum: An Interview with Bootsy Collins; T. Sayers Ellis PART IV. IMPRESSIONS: FUNKATIVITY AND VISUAL ART Cane Fields, Blues Text-ure: An Improvisational; K. Ohnesorge Good Morning Blues; M. Bryan Shine2.0: Aaron McGruder's Huey Freeman as Contemporary Folk Hero; H. Rambsy II PART V. FUNKINTELECHY: (RE)COGNIZING BLACK WRITING Alabama; A. Nielsen Jazz Aesthetics and the Revision of Myth in Leon Forrest's There Is a Tree More Ancient than Eden; D. Williams Living the Funk: Lifestyle, Lyricism, and Lessons in; C. Phelps Modern and Contemporary Art of Black Women Cultural Memory in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men ; O. Krouse Dismukes PART VI. IMAGINE THAT: FONKY BLUES ROCKIN AND ROLLIN Funkin' with Bach: The Impact of Professor Longhair on Rock'n'Roll; C. L. Keys Blue/Funk as Political Philosophy: The Poetry of Gil Scott-Heron; T. Bolden