‘These managers that were effectively running the British music business were people like the Delfonts [legendary theatrical impresario Bernard Delfont and his brothers Lew and Leslie Grade], theatre managers who needed acts to put on in them. Even if that circuit was gradually dying out, that was how show business still seemed to work – television too. But it also meant the groups were being marketed as pop acts and had to conform to that when they got a record deal, because that’s what the companies wanted. Listen to Sweet Sensation, who had a hit with “Sad Sweet Dreamer” in 1974, they were produced by Tony Hatch, who’s best known for the Crossroads theme tune [creaky British 1960s/1970s daytime soap].
‘When the BritFunk guys came along we wanted to go our own way. We were younger and hadn’t been listening to Tamla Motown – our bands were Earth, Wind & Fire, Herbie Hancock and Ramsey Lewis. Then because we were British and we had our own outlook on stuff, they didn’t know what to do with us. Take Kandidate, for example, their management signed them to RAK Records, which was Mickie Most’s company, and he’d had a load of success as a producer with pop and rock records. He’d produced Hot Chocolate a few years earlier, but things had moved on and Kandidate had much more of an edge to them. Take their hit, “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”. It was a good tune, but they were manipulated into being what Mickie Most’s idea of what soul music should be. It was a sign of what would surely happen to the music if it carried on that traditional industry route.’
Just as frustration was starting to set in, a funk revolution happened in the UK. More in spite of the music industry than because of it.
IT’S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION that Saturday Night Fever, released in the UK in 1978, marked the beginning of disco. In reality, it was the beginning of the end. The roots of disco lay in the decade’s early years, when an explosion of soul music was triggered by the massive increase in black-owned radio stations in the US in the late 1960s. To feed this beast, the black music industry had to produce not just more soul music but more types of soul music, as it coincided with advertisers chasing a burgeoning black middle class. The self-explanatory radio format Quiet Storm was born at this point; orchestrators such as Gamble & Huff, Gene Page and Barry White made symphonic funk; and jazz/funk bubbled through. The Soul Train TV show, first aired in 1971, showed everyone just how sexy this new soul could be, and it proved its commercial power with Earth, Wind & Fire and Parliament/Funkadelic rocking stage shows on a previously unheard-of scale (for black acts, anyway). Suddenly the American record business was all over it, spending real money on black acts as large quantities of their music found its way into the record collections of Middle America. Once that happened, disco was never far away.
Naturally there was a knock-on effect in the UK, where glam rock was on the wane and the industry was quick to offer up this post-Motown soul as a new Saturday-night soundtrack. That was a shrewd move; with its booming, relatively uncomplicated rhythms, abundant top end, melodic hooks and sentiments either breathtakingly optimistic or dedicated to the dance, this evolved funk found fulsome favour over here. Tunes like “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”, “We’ve Got The Funk”, and “Oops Upside Your Head”, along with more or less anything by Maze, were universal floor-fillers. It even became bona fide pop music: Barry White was the fourth-biggest-selling album artist in Britain in 1975, above David Essex and below Perry Como; while the only male artists to sell more singles than George McRae that year were the Davids Bowie and Essex.
‘Where it’s At’ was to be found in the back pages of Blues and Soul.
As a youth demographic, funkateers more than held their own against punks, revivalist mods and nascent New Romantics, albeit with far less media attention. Nowhere was this more visible than in the southeast, where, under the stewardship of a cabal of larger-than-life deejays who dubbed themselves The Soul Mafia – Chris Hill, Steve Walsh, Jeff Young, Robbie Vincent and so on – previously unremarkable nightclubs like Cheeky Pete’s in Richmond, Flick’s in Dartford, Scamps in Hemel Hempstead, the California Ballroom in Dunstable, and Maison Royale in Bournemouth were reinvented as cathedrals of groove.
At the same time, a wave of land-based jazz/funk-dedicated pirate radio stations emerged in the southeast. This was before the 1984 Telecommunications Act gave the Department of Trade and Industry draconian powers to use against radio pirates, and dozens of stations sprang up, some boasting tens of thousands of listeners and many broadcasting around the clock. The earliest, Invicta, broadcast from 1970 onwards under the slogan ‘Soul over London’, and petitioned the Home Office for a legal all-soul station. JFM, the first on FM, grew out of the 1960s’ illegal community station Radio Jackie. Switching to an FM frequency in 1980, it shortened its name to JFM, and opted for so funky a schedule that many listeners believed the initials stood for Jazz Funk Music. Horizon Radio took on club deejays, but expected them to pay to present their shows as they were plugging their big-money club gigs. Not surprisingly, a dozen of them quit to start their own station, Solar, the Sound Of London’s Alternative Radio. The iconic and well-reggaefied black London station DBC (Dread Broadcasting Company), established in 1981, brought a sound-system vibe to the party with Dark Star & Lady Di’s Friday-night funk extravaganza.
The UK edition of Blues & Soul became jazz/funk’s house journal, covering clubs and shows, and employing a few deejays as columnists – a teenage Pete Tong was their advertising executive, building a name as a deejay after work. The magazine’s role in establishing jazz/funk as a movement across a wide region cannot be underestimated, as it facilitated a growing sense of community among groups of fans – or ‘tribes’ as they called themselves – spread across the southeast (and in Manchester). That gave the magazine a unique role – beyond listing US record releases – in marshalling the scene, and doing a great deal to set its tone. In turn, B&S was massively rejuvenated by increased advertising spend by record companies, club promoters and the deejays themselves.
THEN THE JAZZ/FUNK ALL-DAYERS moved things up a level. Daytime raving had long been a feature of Northern Soul, a scene which because it was more about dancing than drinking remained unhampered by the 1970s’ restrictive licensing laws. Now clubs ran charabancs to take over larger (and probably softer) southern venues on the occasional Sunday. In 1976, enterprising promoters started seeking to hoover up local ticket sales by featuring secondary jazz/funk rooms at the events. These were so oversubscribed that by the next year jazz/funk entrepreneurs were running their own all-dayers at venues like Reading Top Rank, Tiffany’s in Purley and Alexandra Palace. Publicised on the pages of B&S, these 11am-to-11pm events attracted crowds of six or seven thousand (twice the size of a seated Hammersmith Odeon). Tribes from around the region would fetch up carrying banners and wearing matching teeshirts bearing such legends as Merton Soul Patrol, Herts Steppers, SAS Crew (Soulful & Sexy) or Benfleet Funkateers.
The high point of their calendar was the Caister Soul Weekender. Starting in 1979, the above-mentioned deejays would hire an out-of season holiday camp at Caister-on-Sea, near Great Yarmouth, to put on two days and nights of nonstop dancing, drinking and tomfoolery – human pyramids, toga parties, beachwear, whistles, klaxons as regulation accessories … It assumed the sort of eminence that Glastonbury enjoys in the rock world, and continues today – the same music, mostly the same deejays and punters, with the only noticeable difference being that the tribal tee shirts are two or three sizes larger.
By the start of the twenty-first century, the jazz/funk weekender had spawned its own nostalgia industry among south-of-England forty-somethings.
Perhaps understandably, all this prompted a degree of resentment among London funk’s first wave. Some weren’t happy that the scene they felt they had worked hard to set up was being taken over by a group of white deejays who, they believed, took it straight into the mainstream to line their own pockets. The bands however, as Steve explains, didn’t see it that way:
‘By the middle of the decade there was a good live scene in London �
�� the Greyhound, the Nashville Rooms, places like that – but it was primarily for rock bands. We were struggling to break out of the smaller venues because the bookers at the bigger rooms didn’t know about the funk scene and didn’t believe we could pull a crowd – they were just getting into reggae and because we were black but plainly weren’t reggae it baffled them. So although we were gigging, we weren’t being pushed to develop or build careers. Sometimes gigs were so low-key they felt like rehearsals. What saved us was those funk deejays, they had their own scene and could bring us up into it.
‘There were people who were unhappy about the way the scene changed, and that’s going to be the case with anything that shifts like that. Everything needs to grow to survive, and those guys were instrumental in pushing it to what it became. Whoever or whatever they were, Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, Steve Walsh and those guys had a deep love of the music, and as they promoted it they brought the bands along with them. This was absolutely crucial for us in our development as artists, because every band wants to play to the biggest audiences they can. The all-dayers gave us the chance to headline proper shows in front of an audience that really appreciated us. Although they’d go mad for the Americans, because we were theirs and were embedded in that scene we were like family to that crowd – you’d see the same faces at every gig. But although they loved us, they weren’t going to accept any old thing, and that pushed us on to get better and try new things. Because those gigs were a dancehall environment we saw what they wanted and could react to it immediately. We all grew as artists on that scene.’
Kenny maintains it was a more mutually beneficial state of affairs:
‘The biggest audiences were the all-dayers and the weekenders. The Funk Mafia had a big audience, and although they were going with or without us we added something to the crowd that was already there. They worked out they needed the bands to make the all-dayers and weekenders properly work, because the combination of bands and those deejays would be a potent force. They realised it more than the bands, who for the most part were just happy to go along and play. It was something that worked for us at the time, because we were playing big gigs and getting much better at what we did, but with hindsight we probably could have made more of it in terms of building for ourselves.’
Using that same hindsight, it’s easy to see why these young musicians didn’t build for themselves – they didn’t really need to. The record industry had embraced the Soul Mafia deejays, taking them on as A&R men or consultants, and thereby opening the door for the London bands. In a flurry of activity, Hi Tension signed to Island; Light Of The World, Incognito and Phil Fearon & Galaxy to Ensign, a Phonogram subsidiary, in which Chris Hill was influential; Central Line and Junior Giscombe to Mercury, where Jeff Young was in A&R; Atmosfear to MCA; First Light (Paul ‘N-n-n-n-nineteen’ Hardcastle was half of this duo) and Total Contrast to London Records; Second Image (managed by Robbie Vincent), Shakatak and Level 42 to Polydor; and Imagination to R&B, Pye’s disco subsidiary, to whom Freeez were also signed. All of which was a long way removed from the self-sufficiency of lovers’ rock; one of the few parallels to that ethos was Linx’s first single “You’re Lying”, which came out on their own Aves label, but as soon as it started selling well it was picked up by Chrysalis.
In the by-now disco-crazy mainstream, BritFunk was holding its own. Steve maintains that was because they’d had ample time to get ready:
‘We’d been learning our craft for years, and were fortunate in that we could try things out and refine how we did things away from a very big spotlight. Our crowds encouraged us all the way, and we could really develop according to our own instincts and what we could see was working, rather than as the result of marketing meetings in which some blokes who’d never been to a club tell you what they think will make people dance.
‘The all-dayers put us in front of the sort of crowds a lot of rock groups would dream about, so we learned stagecraft and how to put on a show. When bands like us or Hi Tension went on Top of the Pops and could look as exciting as any American funk band, people were amazed, but it was what we’d been doing for ages.’
What was remarkable was that, in the beginning, this subculture was more or less left to itself. Most record companies didn’t profess to understand jazz/funk, so they left it to the deejaying A&R men/consultants who knew precisely what was required. When the bands did get a major label push, the impact was immediate and impressive.
Hi Tension were up first when, in 1978, their singles “Hi Tension” and “British Hustle” went top twenty and top ten respectively, each selling over 200,000. The following year Light Of The World hit the lower reaches of the charts with “Midnight Groovin’”, the first of a series of top forty appearances that stretched into 1982. In 1981, the LOTW off-shoot Beggar & Co – Kenny, David Baptiste and Breeze McKrieth – proved immediately successful, scoring three big chart hits, albeit one of them with Spandau Ballet. Central Line’s “Walking Into Sunshine” was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, as was “You’ve Said Enough” the following year. Freeez were chart regulars during the first few years of the 1980s, with “Southern Freeez” and “IOU” going top ten, and the latter doing very well in the US. Linx hit the charts five times between 1980 and 1982, with “Intuition”, the follow-up to “You’re Lying”, -up being the most successful, and then David Grant’s solo career kept him in the top twenty until 1985. Imagination were Top Of The Pops regulars between 1981 and 1984, and also had hits in Europe and the US. Phil Fearon, with or without Galaxy, was virtually a top twenty resident during 1983 and 1986; Junior Giscombe enjoyed success in the UK and the US in 1982 with “Mama Used To Say” and continued to be found in the British charts for a couple of years; snf David Joseph, post-Hi Tension, had a chart hit with “You Can’t Hide (Your Love Forever)” in 1983. Incognito’s 1981 album, Jazz/Funk, did very well in Switzerland, even if their single “North London Boy” was all but ignored in north London. Second Image’s records were big in the clubs, and regularly troubled the lower reaches of the charts. Shakatak broke through in 1982 with the single “Easier Said Than Done”, triggering a succession of hit singles and gold albums that saw the group build a huge audience in Japan. And Level 42 forged an international career on a string of top twenty hits that lasted from 1980 until they broke up in 1994.
The bands showed off their musicianship, and exulted in the sheer breadth of the genre. Hi Tension were sophisticated party time, produced by Osibisa’s percussionist Kofi Ayivor, and effortlessly tore it up on Top of the Pops. Light Of The World’s self-titled first album is a true genre classic, a spiky, mostly instrumental masterpiece of horn play, infectious rhythms and clever musical layering. Central Line’s embryonic-electro “Walking Into Sunshine” was as clever as it was restrained as it was a massive hit, but they surpassed it with the not-so-obvious choice of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” inna jazz/funk style. Freeez’s “IOU” and accompanying video completely captures the moment when British funk osmosed into hip hop; Linx showed how easy it was to be smooove without sacrificing funkiness by building tunes like “You’re Lying” and “So This Is Romance” around Sketch’s bass guitar. Mirage’s “Summer Groove”, Junior’s “Mama Used To Say” and David Joseph’s “You Can’t Hide (Your Love Forever)” were irresistible.
While still playing to their ‘home’ crowds in the suburban clubs, the groups were now getting regular TV exposure. Their records were all over daytime radio, their music was evolving as they cut albums in proper studios, and most were selling singles by the truckload. What could possibly go wrong?
THE SUBURBAN SOUL SCENE was never going to be as black as its West End counterpart had been, but that needn’t have been an issue – for years convoys of Escorts and Cortinas had set off from Wood Green or White City, heading for soul nights in places like Welwyn Garden City or Bognor. These were specialist events where kindred spirits were made welcome; indeed being black and from London was usually a plus point. Many of the later wave of clubs, tho
ugh, were more mainstream-oriented, which meant less commitment to the music and all that went with it. All too often, locals would resent the urban interlopers who were habitually better dancers, generally cooler dressed and usually a big hit with the ladies. Confrontation was frequently on the cards.
Although there was never a massive problem, it was easy for club managements to see the black guys as trouble, and the best way to prevent that was to stop them coming in. ‘Sorry lads, it’s full in there’ was how bouncers with more developed people skills would greet black faces, while ‘Oh, they’ve been in earlier’ was the glib explanation when half a dozen white guys who clearly hadn’t were ushered in moments later.
Steve, who played at these clubs with Central Line, remembers the group being stopped at doors and having to patiently explain ‘We’re on stage in an hour!’ He endorses the notion that nothing inflamed a certain element more than seeing white girls fraternising with black guys. Grinning and spreading his hands in a gesture of apparent blamelessness, he recalls:
‘That’s what used to set them off, us getting amongst their women … And there was nothing we could do about it – so many of them were so keen.’
This sort of door policy spread, as venue managers who had been nervous about black music looked to justify a ban on black people. Kenny believes there was more to it:
‘It was like that scene in that Michael Douglas film Falling Down, with the black guy outside the bank who was uneconomically viable. That was their attitude towards us at those out-of-town clubs – uneconomically viable. We came there to dance, we weren’t going to buy round after round of beer and then scampi and chips. They thought we’d buy one blackcurrant and lemonade that would last all night, and they wanted an excuse to ban us because they said we didn’t buy enough drinks.’
Sounds Like London Page 25