Funk Incognito

August 6th, 2004: Just before waking from a nap this afternoon, I had a dream: My daughter and I were eating in a restaurant and I mentioned a concert that I’d seen in the old Charlotte Coliseum … and it appeared, the coliseum. The scene changed. I was riding on a bus, seated beside two black ladies, and recounting the concerts I’d seen there … Willie Nelson, Elvis, etc. Then I told them I’d seen Rick James perform there [I’d actually seen him in Greensboro]. One of the ladies said, “When I see him, Rick James, I’m gonna get on to him for leaving us like this.” I awoke from the dream, signed onto the Internet, and saw the headline … Funk legend Rick James, dead at 56.

The following piece is another for the “Etc” column. For regular readers of this Blog, there may be some repetition. The story’s not about Rick James and it sure ain’t about Orthodoxy. Today, however, it seemed appropriate.

Funk Incognito

He closed the book, put his pen in his pocket, crossed the room, opened the cabinet, and pulled out the old stuff. He ran his hands across the large square covers, dusting off the jackets. He realized there was nothing in there that would save his soul; just funk and junk from days gone by: Cameo, Gap Band, Rick James, Parliament/Funkadelic, George Clinton. Old school. Part of him. “Tear the roof off, we gonna tear the roof off the mother, sucker … tear the roof off the sucker …”

It was Monday, his day off. The wife was at work; the kids were with others at the pool. He was alone for at least another hour. He always seemed to be depressed on Mondays. He figured Mondays were a letdown after the highpoint of the week. He’d once heard that it was on Monday that God separated the Heavens and the Earth. It was the only day mentioned in Genesis where it does not say, “… and it was good.” Thus, Mondays were blessed to be downers. Later he’d have to get dressed and head out. But for now, he closed the door. Locked it. Then opened another one.

Inside, the turntable was vintage 1978. Technics. Back then, state of the art; today, a classic. Except for the crack on the cover. The crack was 1980. He’d gone to sell books door-to-door with the Southwestern Book Company in Wisconsin. His stereo had stayed back in North Carolina with his younger brother. Anyone else and he’d still be angry. His thoughts snapped back to musicology as he began to wipe the album.

He remembered when cleaning an LP was an exotic ritual. It was, without being base, an act of foreplay. He no longer had the felt-covered tool and cleaning fluid. Who used them anymore? But, in his mind’s eye, he went through the motions. Foreplay with a paper towel. Not quite the same. Somehow, irreligious.

Before dropping the needle, he noticed a hum; tinkered with the ground wire, lowered the noise a bit. He looked around one last time, making sure he was alone. It began. Crackling. Even though he’d taken expert care of his albums, the LP hissed its unique introduction. Unmistakable. In these days of digital, that sound alone – snap, crackle, hiss, pop – took him back.

Back to a day when life was simpler, less controversial. Wasn’t it? The current culture seemed awash in sex and cultural wars. Didn’t it? Back then, back when, it was the Cold War. Folks did what every culture does when death’s imminent. They danced. “Boogie fever! You got to boogie down …”

As rock-n-roll died and disco loomed, it seemed everyone entered a grey area. The line between black and white was less visible. Heck, nothing was very clear except the need to dance. The high school gymnasium would be filled to capacity following another losing football game. “Oh what a night! Late December, back in ‘63 …” The whites would be dancing with whites; the blacks with blacks. But everyone was on the same page of music. “I, I … I’m just a Love Machine …” We were together but separate. Of course, the whites had kept a longing eye toward the blacks. Else how would we have ever learned the new moves? He remembered that success in that regard was not always optimum.

Before the song began he looked down and realized he didn’t want to hear that song anymore. He quickly retrieved the needle and flipped the album back into its cover. He caught his reflection in the mirror. God, he’d grown old. What had happened? When? He shook it off and fingered his way though the big crate for the right selection.

Queen, The Game. There it was again: the summer of 1980, going door-to-door selling books in the Northwoods. “Another one bites the dust …” He’d finally escaped the South. He’d discovered that many folks in the wilds of Wisconsin were prejudiced against Native Americans. At least for a Southerner, it seemed odd. He’d actually met people who had never seen a black person except on television. On more than a few occasions, someone would comment on how prejudiced folks were in the South. These were usually the same folks who’d never seen a black man. It was like the pot calling the kettle Indian.

Earth, Wind & Fire, KISS, Aerosmith, Foghat, The Time …

After graduating, he’d shared a house with a black roommate. The two had soon discovered that no matter how hip you were you could still be prejudiced. “Don’t stand so … don’t stand so … don’t stand so close to me!” In time, he’d shared all the racial jokes he knew. His roomie had actually laughed! Yet he’d found, when the tables were turned, he couldn’t understand all the white jokes told to him. Sort of like the machinations of dancing, he was too close to his own blindness to follow the steps.

Stevie Wonder, Dwight Yoakam, Rod Stewart, Heaven 17, English Beat, Third World. Ah, look at that. He pulled out the cover and read:

Love.
Make love, not war.
Speed kills.
Love.
Hell no, we won’t go.
Love. Sex.
No more war!

It was a cool cover. Full of Peace Signs, fat letters, and psychedelic graphics that characterized an era. It was the first album he’d ever bought with his own money. Five dollars back in ‘69. The soundtrack to HAIR.

He looked at the platter. He’d obviously not known how to care for an LP back then. He’d been only eight, maybe nine. Gosh. HAIR. He’d never played it unless he was alone. Bad, bad language. Some of it he hadn’t understood. But all of it had made him feel cool, older. A part of.

For the first time, 35 years later, he noticed that the record was produced by Robert Stigwood. Didn’t he do Saturday Night Fever’s soundtrack? He put HAIR down and dug through the orange crate. Fleetwood Mac, Dr Hook, Frampton, Willie Nelson …

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John & Bernie Taupin. He didn’t just look at the cover, he instantly relived a whole segment of adolescence through its art. He entered a world of fantasy. But it was the most real world imaginable back in 1975. He could see, smell, and feel the power of the past. He and Benny, 1974 … 73 … “I hope ya don’t mind … I hope ya don’t mind … that I put down in words, how wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”

They were into Elton John. They knew all the lyrics. Sang them out loud. Sure, they knew he was queer. What of it? They worshiped him. “Some punk with a shotgun … killed young Danny Baily …” He’d even gotten into arguments with his mother about Elton being greater than Elvis. His mother, a child of the 50’s, would have none of it.

Truth be told, even now, he still boasted of having seen the King in concert: 1972, before Elvis got fat. Their seats had been behind the stage before stages were round. Still, Elvis made sure to pay attention to those behind him. At the age of eleven, his main memory was how odd it was for Elvis to sing and gyrate about lust only to end his concert with a few Gospel songs – as if Jesus was okay with all that. “Then sings my soul … my Saviour God, to thee … how great Thou art …”

Memories. His first sermon at the age of twelve. It was Youth Sunday at Mission Baptist Church. He was the designated youth preacher. In his sermon, he compared Elton John with God, lamenting how the former was more famous than the latter. He’d said that if there had been a sign out in front of the church advertising that Elton John would be there, the place would have been packed! Appreciating the fact, at least assuming it, that God was present, he’d indicated the empty seats. He remembers how aggravated he was a couple years later when, on Youth Sunday, the pastor had asked him for an advanced copy of his sermon before allowing him to preach.

Then there was Benny Starnes. He could still hear his mom saying, when Benny had been allowed coveted liberties, “Well, I ain’t Benny Starnes’ mother!” He and Benny were inseparable until about the ninth grade. Benny lived across from a cemetery. They’d spent many a night there, walking among the dead, singing Elton John, Captain & Tennille, Chicago, and the like. Yet high school brought new thoughts, new things, new adventures. Namely, at least for him, girls. The bump. Slow dancing. French kissing. Acne. Longing. “Points of her own, standing way up high …”

Benny had made a bold and tragic fashion statement in high school. He wore one of those Starsky & Hutch sweaters. He never dated. People made fun of him. Called him “Sweater.” They kidded Benny about his perfectly quaffed hair.

He looked back down at Captain Fantastic bursting from his bubble, piano in tow. “So hard to write a song with bitter fingers …” He flipped the cover over and saw the Brown Dirt Cowboy – Benny Starnes? – sealed in his bubble. Everyone later learned, Benny was gay.

He placed Elton back in the rota and fingered up to the sepia toned cover of Running on Empty, Jackson Browne. He thought of Steve Davis, his best friend in high school. Steve loved this album, Jackson Browne. It was Steve who’d told him of Browne’s writing a previous hit, The Pretender, after his wife’s death. That fact alone had helped him appreciate the artist through the years. Funny how death had a way of making some folks famous. He could still hear Steve singing Billy Joel: “Only the good die young!” Steve died in a boating accident ten years ago. Steve wasn’t famous, but he would have said, “One out of two ain’t bad.”

Average White Band. Oh my! The album cover sported the initials, A W B, with the drawing of a woman’s ample derriere substituting for the W. His mother hadn’t wanted him to buy it for that very reason. She was not Benny Starnes’ mother, but she relented. It was 1974 and, being a white guy, he felt blessed to find a bunch of ‘em playing funky music. That year at the beach, in one of those “design your own t-shirt” shops, he’d gotten another wish: A red fishnet shirt with the initials – Latin W, mind you – emblazoned on the front. He’d only worn it for a season. Whenever he did, folks picked on him. He thought it was cool. He now knew it was stupid.

Speaking of looking stupid, there it was: John Travolta on the cover. He flipped it over and saw the initials RSO. Yep, produced by Robert Stigwood. How could the same guy who produced HAIR have transitioned to Disco? Disco led to the fall of Rome. Disco made the Episcopal Church go bonkers. Disco killed Elvis. Disco made others dizzy enough to see Elvis pumping gas. Nuns discarding the habit? Disco. Political correctness? Disco. Goddess worship? Disco. Blue M & M’s? Disco.

He stared at Saturday Night Fever’s cover and for the first time he noticed that the cover featured four white guys: Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, along with Travolta. Though there were a few blacks on the back, Tavares & Yvonne Elliman, the pictures inside the cover are all of white folks dancing. Whites borrowing from, and trying to be like, blacks. He laughed at himself. Wasn’t that what started this whole memory trip? A middle-aged white man hoping to play a little funk on the ol’ Victrola before the wife and kids came home?

He was looking for Prince’s album, Controversy. The title song’s refrain: Am I black or white? Am I straight or Gay? Controversy! He couldn’t find it. He went to the spare closet where he’d piled hundreds of platters in hopes of an eventual E-Bay fortune.

There! Controversy. The cover advertized newspaper headlines:

Love Thy Neighbor
Annie Christian Sentenced to Die
President Signs Gun Control Act
Do You Believe in God?

He noticed that each photo of The Controversy Daily featured the same article: Instant weather reports make trip planning easy.

He reached inside the cover to pull out the inner sleeve. The free poster, featuring a thong-clad Prince in the shower by a crucifix, had long since disappeared. O my God! The inner jacket was from an old KISS album and the LP inside was a scratched up copy of a Willie Nelson record. Now that’s weird! What’s that all about? The earworms sang in chaos:

“The red headed stranger from Blue Rock, Montana, rode into town one day …”

transitioned to …

“I’m the king of the nighttime world … and you’re … my …
midnight queen …”

to …

“It was the time of the Preacher … in the year of ‘01 …”

till finally, from memory …

I just can’t believe all the things people say – Controversy
Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? – Controversy
Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me? – Controversy

I can’t understand human curiosity – Controversy
Was it good for you? Was I what you wanted me to be? – Controversy
Do you get high? Does your daddy cry? – Controversy

Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?
Some people wanna die so they can be free
(I said) Life is just a game, we’re all just the same …
do you wanna play?

The final headline, pictured above the bottom of the album’s cover, simply said, The Second Coming. He looked at the clock. Too late. They’d all be home soon. He put the albums back in their respective covers and shelved his memories. He pulled his pen out of the pocket of his black shirt, right below the white clerical collar, re-opened his Bible, and once again thought about the coming Sunday’s sermon.

“Ow, we want the funk
Give up the funk
Ow, we need the funk
We gotta have that funk …”

Right back where he’d started from.

Ow!
____________________________________________________________
Song lyrics in order of appearance:
Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off), Parliament, 1976.
Boogie Fever, The Sylvers, 1976.
December, 1963 (Oh What a Night), The Four Seasons, 1976.
Love Machine (Part 1), The Miracles, 1976.
Another One Bites the Dust, Queen, 1980.
Don’t Stand So Close to Me, The Police, 1981.
Your Song, Elton John, 1971.
The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34), Elton John, 1973.
How Great Thou Art, Elvis Presley, 1968.
Mainstreet, Bob Seger, 1977.
Bitter Fingers, Elton John, 1975.
Only the Good Die Young, Billy Joel, 1977.
Blue Rock Montana / Red Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson, 1975.
King of the Nighttime World, KISS, 1976.
The Time of the Preacher, Willie Nelson, 1975.
Controversy, Prince, 1981.
Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off), Parliament, 1976.