Presence and pleasure : the funk grooves of James Brown and Parliament / Anne Danielsen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Danielsen, Anne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brown, James, 1933-2006.

Brown, James.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 262 pages)

Other Title:

Presence and pleasure

Place of Publication:

Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 2018.

Summary:

In this exploration of the funk groove and its unique sounds, author Anne Danielsen takes and in-depth look at this underexplored genre. Danielsen concentrates on the golden age of funk in the late 1960s and the 1970s, focusing on two of the era's artists who made a substantial impact on the landscape of popular music: James Brown and George Clinton/Parliament. Aiming to understand funk not only as objectified musical meaning but also as lived experience, she begins with the musical events themselves and draws on her experiences as both a fan and a scholar to capture how their particular organization creates the funk listener's pleasure. Danielsen further examines issues surrounding race in the construction and consumption of this music, focusing her study on how white listeners responded to funk in the 1970s, and arguing that African American music has remained a means of catharsis and of dealing with pleasures of the body. Funk's crossover to international success among listeners of pop and rock music affected both the music itself and audiences' understanding of it.

Contents:

I. BLACK AND/OR WHITE: INTRODUCTORY PERSPECTIVES: Whose funk?

Two discourses on blackness

II. A BRAND NEW BAG: ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATIONS: A fabric of rhythm

Rhythm and counter-rhythm "The downbeat, in anticipation"

III. FUNK IN THE CROSSOVER ERA: A brand(ed) new fad

"Some say it's funk after death"

IV. "ONCE UPON A TIME CALLED NOW!": TEMPORALITIES AND EXPERIENCE: Time and again

Between song and groove

Feeling, intensity, and the sublimity of the event

Presence and pleasure.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.