We Got the Funk in Boston!

By Samantha Amodie | April 18, 2019

Funk? In Boston???

Sitting at a bar in Cambridge, crowds chatting, glasses clinking, and you hear the first synth lick to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and suddenly you’re taken back to 1970’s New York where funk was vibing and people were grooving. Yet, the cell phones and Sam Adams on tap are stark reminders that you are still in that tiny bar in Cambridge Massachusetts, down the street from MIT in 2019. When we think of Boston, jazz and funk music are not generally the first music genres to come to mind. The music scene in Boston is fairly diverse yet much of it remains underground or in a corner at your local tavern. The music scene is made up of many demographics, there are the music majors and lovers from specialized schools such as the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory, and the hardened musicians who started it all, flowing in from all over. Boston is still a big city that provides music hot spots with opportunities for all kinds of musical communities to form, such as the funk scene. In this analytical look at funk in Boston, I will reference some of the aforementioned hot spots, such as the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, the historic Wally’s on Mass Ave., and Bull McCabes in Somerville. Through research, I will take a closer look at how it has changed over the years, along with some welcomed opinions from those musicians who are currently active in the funk scene.  By getting to know some of those musicians, I aim to not only gain a better understanding of how the current funk scene came about but, also how and where it currently functions as a musical community.

In an article in The Boston Globe, Boston was described as being one of the early adopters of P-Funk music. A large part of this adoption had to do with the diversity of people in Boston, as James Sullivan put it, “’street people,’ college students, [and] serious music heads from Berklee…”(Sullivan, 2015). While P-Funk remains a large sub-genre of funk music, it is clear that the demographics of fans cover a wide range of people. That being said, when people think of funk or even jazz music, Boston is generally not the first hub that comes to mind. This brings about the question, why not Boston? Funk music in Boston, though seems underground relative to the general music industry, has become a major building block for musicians and music lovers alike. By having the privilege of quality musicians pouring out from schools such as Berklee College of Music, it is no wonder that the quality of music performed is also high, making the funk scene blossom in a way that many other cities may not be able to experience. The talented funk foundation in Boston has been set and continues on through bands such as Lettuce, a popular funk band who can attribute its own origins to Boston’s music scene and Berklee. Therefore, Boston should not be overlooked when studying the history and progression of funk music.

Making Connections

As we dive further into the current local scenes in Boston, the research methods I used for this project vary, from in person interviews to research in the library. In our class, we learned a lot about inserting oneself into the community and using that social connection to follow up with fieldnotes and observations. For this project I relied heavily on casual social interactions. Concerned about making people feel like test subjects, I wanted the people I spoke with to see more of my genuine interest in the topic rather than see me as a student working on a school project. My first connection into the community was through a friend I met at my first job in a rehearsal studio in Somerville, Massachusetts. This person, whom I will discuss further later on, introduced me to his friends and colleagues he works with in the funk community. Touching on some of my past field notes, when I first expressed my interest in the community, I was met with excitement and encouragement.

Fieldwork

Furthering my research to understand the current standing of the community, I proceeded by attending as many performances as I could as a full-time student.  Each performance I attended, I tried to make some form of connection or conversation. Sometimes these interactions were very brief as the members I spoke with were also busy promoting themselves and the band to audience members who were interested. This brought to my attention that many of the funk musicians were often a part of or ran wedding bands.

This took me by surprise, why would such talented musicians who play such unique and fun music subject themselves to playing Bruno Mars and The Four Seasons at some stranger’s wedding? But, as I became more familiar with how they performed and sounded it made more sense. Funk is not an easy genre to pick up and perform. It requires focus, high accuracy, and precision. Funk music is all about the beat and the rhythm, syncing with the rest of the band, and playing right in the pocket, and let’s not forget you need to have soul and passion to really make the music speak for itself. In order to be a successful wedding band or musician, one must be able to perform as expected by the party hiring you. Meaning, play in the pocket, play well with each other, and try to sound great every single time you perform. There is also a ton of crossover with most popular music branching from funk that also brings those two scenes closer together. Think of artists whose music is often performed at weddings and crosses into the funk genre: Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, etc.  It makes sense that such a demanding style of music and picky performance requirements that also inspired much of popular music today goes hand in hand. One needs to be very skilled musician in order to be successful at either.

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Another important part of my research that gave me a closer inside look was the in-person interview I recorded with the man who introduced me to the funk scene here in Boston, Skuli Thorsteinsson. His interview provided a raw look into his view as an experienced guitar player in the funk scene and as a Berklee alum. Keeping in mind my casual approach, I tried to assure Skuli that the interview was intended to be a relaxed open conversation about funk and tried to emphasize that his formality was less important than him answering the questions in his own way. Once he became more comfortable with the process, I found that Skuli answered more fluidly and gave some really interesting insight to the funk community. In this post I have inserted a small segment of the hour long interview, highlighting one of the answers given that I felt were very valuable to the research. (Thorsteinsson, 2019)
Field notes and photography were another way for me to record my observations and interactions with the community. Recalling one of my first interactions with the band The Chicken Slacks, who mostly include funk songs in their set, I was able to gain some background knowledge from the band members. What I learned was that many of them had come from other states where there was not a lot of work for jazz musicians and they were told, specifically, that the Cantab Lounge in Boston was the place to go. Other members of the band, Skuli and his roommate for example, were Berklee alum who had a fix for funk music and were often asked to sub in on Thursday nights for the band when their guitar and/or piano player were out. It was through these chains of connections where I gained a better idea of how this community came about. They are talented musicians looking for work and gigs who love funk music and knew or learned that Boston was a great way to feed into the funk scene. Not only will you find places to perform, but one will have the opportunity to play with other extremely talented musicians who learned from the best for the best. As in many music scenes, once you meet a few people at one gig, it can easily turn into more gigs. Furthermore, this presents an opportunity where quality meets quality, and with that comes gigs and great music making.
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Another performance where I was first introduced to some of the connections between funk musicians, was while attending a Lettuce concert in January, as mentioned before Lettuce is a popular funk band originating from Boston. During the concert, Lettuce invited a friend of theirs to join them on stage and shred with them (shred is another term for soloing or performing very well). That friend was Jeff Lockhart, who also happened to be my interviewee’s guitar professor at Berklee. Continuing the network web, Jeff introduced Skuli to the funk scene early on when Skuli began taking lessons with him. I then learned that Jeremy, the saxophone player for The Chicken Slacks, also knows Jeff, along with many other local musicians who were in attendance at the Lettuce concert.

The fact that so many local funk musicians were at the Lettuce concert made me think that there was a lot of support amongst musicians in Boston. This idea also came through at Bull McCabe’s, where I noticed musicians from other clubs, such as Amy Bellamy the funk pianist often seen at Wally’s, would come to support her fellow musicians performing that night in Cambridge. It seemed commonplace for musicians in the funk scene to go to other performances their friends were playing at and go up to them in between sets to chat. Though, I question whether this is specific to the funk scene in Boston or among professional local musicians in general. Nonetheless, the connections and friendships within the community was made clear by seeing so many familiar faces from previous performances at other gigs to support their colleagues.

 

Chicken Slacks @ the Cantab Lounge, Cambridge, MA

This interaction among fellow musicians happened the most at more casual concerts held at venues such as Wally’s Jazz Café or Bull McCabe’s. Whereas venues such as the Cantab Lounge was slightly more formal with a more active audience on a dance floor. The vibe of these venues coincides with these casual interactions. While all three have stages for their performers, the way the audience interacts with the bands is different. At venues such as Wally’s the audience would be stationary in their chair or floor space, while verbally interacting with the band, shouting or hooting when they’d hear a lick they enjoyed, or a song they recognized, as well as applauding soloists. The stationary aspect was also in part due to how crowded the place would get when a good band was playing. In contrast, Bull McCabe’s carried a different, more background vibe. The band was in a corner of the far end of the bar on a stage, and while people did not exactly dance, there was always a circle of people surrounding the stage, while the rest were sitting at tables or standing around. The audience response, to me, seemed quieter, or more divided than Wally’s; it was easy to distinguish who was there for the music and who was simply there for a drink. Meanwhile, at the Cantab, audience participation went beyond applauding and cheering on the band, and the dance floor was often the most crowded part of the venue. Familiarity with the musicians at the Cantab varied the most. While there were the few regulars, most of the audience members were not personally familiar with the members of the band performing, and of the musicians who were, were on stage playing throughout the evening.

Furthermore…

I learned that much of the funk scene was made up of a web of musicians from all over who came to Boston one way or another to perform music they care about and enjoy, funk. Some connections are teacher to student, some are friend to friend, while others are made at the gigs themselves. There were plenty of moments where I would see musicians such as Skuli sub in for a band member and the guest that night come up to him or another member and invite them to jam. That jam session opens up opportunities for more gigs and continues the growth of the network web within the funk scene. When it comes to performance venues, the funk scene remains fairly local. Small bands and musicians coming together in the evenings during the week as local bars and taking wedding gigs over the weekend around New England. It’s important to understand that these musicians are still people who need to make a living, and while they have found ways to monetize on the music they are passionate about, they have also found creative ways to fund themselves through other paid performances by playing popular music as well.

As a community, the funk scene functions as an outlet for talented musicians to come together, make music, experiment, push their skills, and learn from one another. While an audience as formed around these performances, because funk music is so universal, these gigs are more for the musicians and the music, a way for them to support and connect with one another as opposed to only entertain. Funk music is still somewhat personal and a way of self-expression for these musicians and this small community is simply another way that offers to support and build upon those expressions. The next time you go to a bar with a funk band playing, look at their faces and how they interact with one another. They are not there for the audience, they are there for the music. I look forward to continuing my attendance to these funk performances and seeing more people enter the scene, whether they be musicians from out of town, or up and coming students from the surrounding schools here in Boston. For those interested in continuing this research into the funk scene, I would encourage you to see beyond the sound and venues and even networks, but look more closely at what brought about the creation funk in the first place, soul and emotion.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jeremy Valedez, The Chicken Slacks, and Skuli Thorsteinsson.

Endnotes

  1. B. (2013). Disco, Punk, New Wave, Heavy Metal, and More: Music in the 1970s and 1980s(M. Ray, Ed.). New York, NY: Britannica Educational Publishing. doi:Google Scholar
  2. Funk, E. (n.d.). The evolution of funk music. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://mind-funk music.com/the-evolution-of-funk-music/
  3. Sullivan, J. (2015, February 12). George Clinton bringing the funk back to Boston – The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/02/12/george-clinton-bringing-funk-back-              boston/Q5FuHG58Zc0KDpr6VXUyGL/story.html
  4. Thompson, D. (2001). Funk. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books. doi:Google Scholar
  5. Thorsteinsson, S. (2019, March 10). Funk Talk [Personal interview].
  6. Vincent, R. (1996). Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One. New York, NY: St. Martins Press. doi:Google Scholar
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