| Go-go | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Funk |
| Cultural origins | mid to late 1970s, US |
| Typical instruments | Drum kit, Keyboards, Synthesizer, Conga, Timbales, Cowbell, Bass guitar, Electric guitar, Saxophone, Brass instrument |
| Mainstream popularity | Regional (Mid-Atlantic) genre. Moderate national influence in the mid-1980s. |
| Other topics | |
| Music of Washington, D.C. - List of funk Musicians | |
Go-go is a subgenre associated with funk that originated in the Washington, D.C., area during the mid- 1960s to late-1970s. It remains primarily popular in the area as a uniquely regional music style. A great number of bands contributed to the early evolution of the genre, but The Young Senators, Black Heat, and notably singer-guitarist Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers are credited with having developed most of the hallmarks of the style.[1]
Inspired by artists such as the groups formerly mentioned and Chuck Brown, Go-go is a blend of funk, rhythm and blues, and early hip-hop, with a focus on lo-fi percussion instruments and funk-style jamming in place of dance tracks, although some sampling is used. As such, it is primarily a dance hall music with an emphasis on live audience call and response. Go-go rhythms are also incorporated into street percussion.
In technical terms, "Go-go's essential beat is characterized by a syncopated, dotted rhythm that consists of a series of quarter and eighth notes (quarter, eighth, quarter, (space/held briefly), quarter, eighth, quarter)… which is underscored most dramatically by the bass drum and snare drum, and the hi-hat… [and] is ornamented by the other percussion instruments, especially by the conga drums, timbales, and hand-held cowbells."[2]
Unique to Go-Go is an instrumentation with 3 standard Congas and 2 "Junior Congas", 8" and 9" wide and about half as tall as the standard Congas, a size rare outside of Go-Go. They were introduced to Rare Essence by Tyrone Williams -aka- Jungle Boogie in the early days when they couldn't afford enough full sized Congas, and are ubiquitous ever since.[3] A swing rhythm is often implied (if not explicitly stated).
Another important attribute in go-go is call-and-response vocals with the crowd in concert.
There is generally little familiarity with go-go music outside of the D.C. Metro area, which includes the District of Columbia and the city's outlying Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. Consequently, the relatively little commercial success (by industry standards) go-go bands have enjoyed has largely been a product of the genre's following in this geographic region. Nevertheless, the style continues to evolve.
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Although Chuck Brown is known as "The Godfather of Go-go" and his tremendous influence in this music is unmatched[4], Go-go is a musical movement that cannot be traced back to any one person, as there were so many great bands that flourished during the beginning of this era, that they collectively created the sound that is considered Go-go of today. Groups such as The Young Senators, Black Heat, Aggression, Brute, And The Echos, Tommy Vann & The Professionals, The Mixed Breed, Scacy & The Sound Service, 95th Congress, 100 Years Time, Experience Unlimited (EU), Sound Extended, Spectrum, 2000 A.D., Lead Head, Symba, Distance, Ashante, Kalidescope, The NoWhere Men, Free Form Experience, The Jaguars, The Corvettes, The Epsilons, The New Breed, Lawrence & The Arabians, Sir Joe & The Free Souls, Ray Johnson's Esquires, Sons of Nature, and The Fathers Children, are just a few of the bands that played great music during the infancy of Go-go.[5]
In the mid-1960s, "go-go" was the word for a music club in the local African American community, as in the common phrase at the time "going to a go-go" popularized by a million-selling hit of the same name by The Miracles . Dancers could expect to hear the latest top 40 hits, as many as 20 at time, performed by local funk, rhythm and blues bands, including Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. Around this time, The Young Senators, later known as "The Emperors of Go-go", who were in fierce competition with Chuck Brown and Black Heat on the club circuit, became known for their 1965 hit "Jungle".[5][6][7]
Chuck Brown was a fixture on the Washington and Maryland music scene with his band the "Los Lotinos" as far back as 1966. By the mid-1970s he had developed a laid-back, rhythm-heavy style of funk (with new group name, "The Soul Searchers") performed with one song blending into the next (in order to keep people on the dance floor). The beat was based on one used in Grover Washington, Jr.'s song "Mr. Magic",[8] though Brown has said in interviews that both he and Washington had adapted the beat from a gospel music beat found in black churches.[9]
Another popular local cover band in the early 1970s, Aggression, would use rhythm breaks to keep fans dancing while they prepared for the next song, fixed guitar strings, etc. As Aggression gained popularity, they started holding dance contests during the rhythm breaks, which subsequently grew in length. The audiences began to look forward to these contests and the band's style evolved to where the beat would stop only occasionally during the course of a show.
In 1976, James Funk, a young DJ who spun at clubs in between Soul Searchers sets, was inspired (and encouraged by Brown himself) to start a band—called Rare Essence (originally the Young Dynamos)—that played the same kind of music.
Experience Unlimited (a.k.a. E.U.) was a band more influenced by rock (their name a nod to the Jimi Hendrix Experience[10]), that started out in 1970. After witnessing Rare Essence in the late-1970s, they modified their style to incorporate the go-go beat.
Trouble Funk had its roots in an early 1970s Top-40 cover band called Trouble Band, then fronted by drummer, Emmett Nixon. With the inclusion of Robert 'Dyke' Reed (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Taylor Reed (trumpet, vocals), James Avery (keyboards, vocals), Teebone David (percussion), and Tony Fisher (bass, vocals), the band changed its name, and, in the late 1970s, after seeing the light at a gig they played with Chuck Brown, they, too, adopted the go-go beat. The band was signed to the Sugar Hill Records label in 1982 and recorded with Kurtis Blow. They are most notably known for their classic "Drop The Bomb".
Go-go's first national chart action came when Black Heat (the first D.C. go-go band to be signed by a major record label) released their Billboard top 100 hit "No Time To Burn" from their second album on Atlantic Records in 1974. They then toured with such national acts as Earth Wind & Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, Ohio Players, The Commodores and others. Later, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers released their "Bustin' Loose (Part 1)" single in late 1978; it reached the #1 spot on Billboard's R&B chart and held it for a month during February and March 1979 (peaking at #34 on the Pop chart).
In the 1980s, some go-go bands achieved success, while others did not. Trouble Funk put out a few records on New Jersey-based label Jamtu before signing with one of the more powerful hip hop label, Sugar Hill, where it released a six-track EP called Drop the Bomb in 1982, which included the hit "Pump Me Up" which had already been a regional hit years before.
In 1984, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell heard Chuck Brown's "We Need Some Money" on the radio in New York, which ultimately led to him signing some of the brightest stars of the go-go scene.[11] Trouble Funk and E.U. were both signed to Island, while Chuck Brown, Mass Extinction, Yuggie, Redds and the Boys and Hot, Cold, Sweat were signed through a distribution deal between T.T.E.D. and Island subsidiary 4th & B'way.
Along with the recording contracts Blackwell was handing out, he also wanted to make a go-go movie; a D.C.-based version of The Harder They Come, perhaps. The resultant film, Good to Go (or Short Fuse, as it was called on video) was plagued with problems: co-director Don Letts was let go halfway through production,[12] the film became less about the music and more about drugs and violence, and despite the fact that most of the post-production was completed in the fall of 1985, the film was held for release until late-summer 1986. When it did poorly on release, it seemed that go-go had missed its best chance to break into the mainstream.
The Junk Yard Band started out in 1980 as a group of kids (as young as nine) from the Barry Farms projects. Unable to afford instruments for their band, they fashioned drums out of empty buckets and traffic cones, tin cans substituted for timbales, and, in place of a brass section, they used plastic toy horns. Adding real instruments to their gear a little at a time, by 1985 they had joined the ranks of D.C.'s finest; they were scooped up by Def Jam, who released a Rick Rubin-produced single "The Word" in 1986. Not much happened with that record—at first. However, within a year or two of its release, the flipside, "Sardines," had become (and remains to this day) the group's signature song; it even performs it in the 1988 film Tougher Than Leather.
Rare Essence signed with Mercury/PolyGram Records but its one single for that label—"Flipside," released in 1986—was unremarkable.
E.U. got its big break in 1986 when it was booked to play a party celebrating the release of Spike Lee's debut film, She's Gotta Have It.[13] Lee liked what he heard, and tapped the band to perform a song in his next movie, School Daze. "Da Butt" (written for the film by Marcus Miller and EU keyboardist, Kent Wood) made it all the way to #1 on Billboard's R&B chart (#35 Pop) and scored them a Grammy nomination (they lost out to Gladys Knight). Hoping to build on their success, in 1989 they released Livin' Large on Virgin Records. Two singles from the album ("Buck Wild" and "Taste of Your Love") made respectable showings on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart but they failed to repeat the success of "Da Butt." (The album peaked at #22 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart and #158 on the Top 200.) A second Virgin release, Cold Kickin' It, came out the following year but failed to make much of an impression on the national charts.
As time passed, more and more of a hip-hop influence crept into go-go. Early MCs like D.C. Scorpio gave way to DJ Kool, whose 1996 indie release, "Let Me Clear My Throat"—based on a sample from DJ Mark the 45 King’s “The 900 Number”—was picked up by American Recordings and in 1997 became go-go's last certifiable hit single (#4 on Billboard's Rap singles chart, #21 on the R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart, and #30 on the Hot 100).[14][15][15] As the hip-hop content in go-go increased, the complexity of the musical arrangements decreased. Where bands once featured horn sections and multiple guitarists in addition to a phalanx of percussionists, many current go-go bands have stripped down to just keyboards and percussion. Another trend is to have a dedicated percussionist with plastic "wood blocks" performing much of what used to be handled by the Junior Congas.
There is, however, a retro movement going back to go-go's original style of marathon sessions covering currently popular R&B songs. Bands playing in that style include Suttle Thoughts, WHAT? band, and Familiar Faces. Many of these bands use the term "Grown ’n Sexy" to indicate a focus on appealing to audiences over 25. In 2006 and again in 2007, there was a Grown and Sexy Category at the WKYS 93.9 Go-Go Awards ceremony held at DAR Constitution Hall, which the Familiar Faces won in 2006, and L!ssen Da Grew^p won in 2007.[16]
Some go-go artists have been able to transition into other areas of entertainment. Notably, Anwan "Big G" Glover—a founding member of the Backyard Band—acts, playing Slim Charles on HBO's The Wire.[17] D.C. band Mambo Sauce also had a hit with "Welcome To D.C." which cracked the Billboard charts.[18] Kevin "Kato" Hammond, former lead guitarist for Little Benny and the Masters and former rapper for the band Proper Utensils, started the online magazine Take Me Out to the Go-Go in 1996. In addition to the magazine being a source of information on go-go shows, it serves as a community forum in which go-go fans routinely submit their own articles on issues unique to the genre. Take Me Out to the Go-Go has expanded to include a radio show on GoGoRadio.com, as well as a YouTube channel.
Additionally, musicians from other genres of music have incorporated elements of the go-go aesthetic into their compositions and stage acts. Jazz/rock musician Mike Dillon, leads a band called Go-Go Jungle, often playing long, non-stop sets that incorporate go-go beats and raps interspersed with other sub-genres of funk, jazz, and rock. Another example is Bob Mintzer's composition "Go Go" from the Yellowjackets' 2003 release, Time Squared.
In September 2009, Wale and UCB served as the house band for the MTV Video Music Awards show.[19]
There is a go-go documentary called Drummers Beat in the works.[20]
While go-go's international profile was on the rise in the 1980s, go-go clubs in D.C. were acquiring an unfortunate reputation for violence. In some areas of Washington—even today—clubs are not permitted to play go-go or have go-go bands appear. In 1988, an all-star go-go band dubbed the Go-Go Posse recorded "D.C. Don't Stand for Dodge City," conceived, written and produced by the "I Hear Ya Records" production team of Jonathan Smith, Mitch Bebbs and Derral Johnson a.k.a JJ&J. as an attempt to raise awareness and stop the violence.
One well-publicized venue with trouble was Club U, located inside a District-owned building at the corner of 14th and U Street NW, where numerous incidents—including murder—occurred, leading to the revocation of its liquor license,[21] and eventual closing.[22]
In March 2007, Jack B. Johnson, County Executive in nearby Prince George's County, Maryland, also cracked down on go-go music, announcing the indefinite closing of nine area clubs that had experienced a high frequency of police calls many for violent incidents in the past year.[23] A court battle is ongoing over whether the closings were justified, with a court order temporarily stopping the closing of five of the clubs.[24]
There have been a number of artists who have sampled from existing go-go records or put out records with a go-go beat.
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