The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Birth of Funk Culture
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2013 Funk My Soul: The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And the Birth of Funk Culture Domenico Rocco Ferri Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ferri, Domenico Rocco, "Funk My Soul: The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And the Birth of Funk Culture" (2013). Dissertations. 664. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/664 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2013 Domenico Rocco Ferri LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO FUNK MY SOUL: THE ASSASSINATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. AND THE BIRTH OF FUNK CULTURE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY DOMENICO R. FERRI CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2013 Copyright by Domenico R. Ferri, 2013 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Painstakingly created over the course of several difficult and extraordinarily hectic years, this dissertation is the result of a sustained commitment to better grasping the cultural impact of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and death. That said, my ongoing appreciation for contemporary American music, film, and television served as an ideal starting point for evaluating Dr. King’s legacy in mass culture. This work likewise is wrought from an intricate combination of support and insight derived from many individuals who, in some way, shape, or form, contributed encouragement, scholarly knowledge, or exceptional wisdom. I am forever indebted to my immediate family for their undying support and sustained sponsorship; I can hardly reciprocate fully their generosity and unconditional love. To be sure, they made this possible. I must express the deepest affection and sincerest gratitude to my partner, Marite! Fregoso, whose love, knowledge, understanding, and support propelled me toward a seemingly unreachable finish. I must also express endless gratitude to my mentor, adviser, and friend, Lewis Erenberg, who patiently remained committed to my cause and has inspired a level of self-confidence that I never thought possible. Susan Hirsch likewise deserves my deepest respect, admiration and appreciation; her tutelage and enduring encouragement throughout my graduate and professional career have been nothing short of essential and extraordinary. I also wish to express deep gratitude to Elizabeth Fraterrigo, without whom this final product in its iii finest form would not exist. I am certain that her continued support and professional expertise were indispensable parts of this work’s completion. Last but not least, I must offer heartfelt appreciation for my colleagues and for the many students at Harold Washington College who supported me. Although it is conceivable that I would have completed this dissertation much sooner had I not been so utterly occupied with teaching and administrative duties, I fully believe that my professional experiences and relationships ultimately enriched the insights found in this work. I know without a doubt that the extensive time spent as a part of the vibrant Harold Washington College community figured heavily and positively into making this a successful project. iii For Rosa, Rocco, and Maria TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT vii INTRODUCTION: RECONSIDERING FUNK ORIGINS AND INFLUENCE 1 CHAPTER ONE: “AIN’T WE TOGETHER?” JAMES BROWN AND A NEW MODEL OF BLACK MUSIC 22 Black Boston 24 Boston Spared, James Brown Style 26 James Brown, Black Power 31 A Funk is Born 38 James Brown Beyond the Music 45 Funk and Business 49 Conclusion 53 CHAPTER TWO: WE WANT THE FUNK: THE DEATH OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MOTOWN SOUND 56 Berry Gordy, “Classic Motown,” and Dr. King 59 Toward a Funky Motown 65 The Supremes and Diana Ross 68 The Funky Temptations 75 Stevie Wonder and Post-Assassination Reinvention 82 The Real Marvin Gaye 95 P-Funk Promises 102 Conclusion 108 CHAPTER THREE: FROM SATELLITE TO SOULVILLE: MEMPHIS, STAX RECORDS, AND THE SOUL-FUNK REVOLUTION 111 Pre-Assassination Stax 112 The Soul-Funk Reaction 131 Al Bell Sells Blackness 139 Booker T and the MG’S Get Funky 144 Isaac Hayes, Front and Center 149 Gospel Funk Hits 158 Wattstax 161 Conclusion 165 CHAPTER FOUR: OUT OF SOUND AND INTO SIGHT: FUNKY, CONTENTIOUS DEPICTIONS OF BLACK AMERICA ON FILM AND TELEVISION 168 Blaxploitation 171 v New Black Cinema 187 Black Television 195 Conclusion 204 CONCLUSION: POST-ASSASSINATION REFLECTIONS AND LEGACIES 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 VITA 232 vi ABSTRACT Few can deny that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s untimely death had a profound impact on American life. In this dissertation, I argue that the assassination inspired musicians, producers, artists, and consumers across the nation to reconstruct soul music and, in its place, construct the cultural idiom known as funk. Narrating the process by which black artists’ embraced and popularized funk modes of expression, this dissertation traces how the genre extended directly from post-assassination trauma and attempted to provide a purposeful announcement of black solidarity and an uncensored narrative of the black American experience. In telling the story of funk, its origins, and its long-term cultural impact, this dissertation collects, narrates, and analyzes the sounds and voices of the genre. It highlights its musicians, management, critics, and fans while demonstrating how these individuals derived inspiration from the King legacy. The funk movement, which emerged as an alternative to the more militant Black Freedom Movement platforms of the 1960s and 1970s, ultimately recast mainstream black identity as forever dynamic and distinct, but indisputably American. In telling the story of funk, its origins, and its long-term cultural impact, this dissertation collects, narrates, and analyzes the sounds and voices of the genre. It highlights its musicians, management, critics, and fans while demonstrating how these individuals derived inspiration from the King legacy. Research and writing explores James Brown’s activism, music, and stylistic innovations, all of which profoundly challenged the creative centers of Motown, Stax, and Hollywood to offer their own interpretations of funk. In vii the context of these chapters, purveyors used funk modes of expression to react to the death of Dr. King, express black pride, comment on the broader problems of black America, and showcase new iterations of black fashion. The final stage of this project hones in on the process by which funk’s most successful albums, along with high- grossing blaxploitation films and black network television, gradually became permanent components of American popular culture. In the end, the broader cultural impact of funk, inasmuch as it gave rise to new musical genres, emerges as directly responsible for black music’s supremacy over contemporary mainstream American airwaves and the establishing of a more prominent position within the American culture industry. viii INTRODUCTION RECONSIDERING FUNK ORIGINS AND INFLUENCE So, we said we were gonna do blues so loud and so long that there wouldn’t be any doubt that funk would be ours forever. — George Clinton, Tavis Smiley interview, 2008 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent pledge was explicit in its terms and served as the enduring ideology to which the Southern Christian Leadership Conference adhered throughout its existence. On the “commitment cards” that Dr. King distributed to those who joined his many demonstrations, he asked that participants “refrain from violence of fist, tongue, and heart.”1 While this moral imperative remained the central tenet of Dr. King’s campaign to reconcile racial tensions and peacefully integrate American society, those who placed a greater emphasis on the need for self-defense against unmitigated violence and institutional oppression questioned the effectiveness of nonviolent activism. Stokely Carmichael, for example, observed how the nonviolent approach seemed to render black Americans “helpless.” As a result, he called for the use of more aggressive techniques to counteract excessive police force and institutional bigotry.2 Inspired by Carmichael’s incendiary rhetoric and strategy in 1967, Huey P. 1 Martin Luther King, “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in James M. Washington eds., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 58. 2 Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, “Black Power: It’s Need and Substance,” in Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 36. 1 2 Newton and the burgeoning Black Panther Party also rejected Dr. King’s nonviolent standard, labeling it as an “emasculating” and “restrictive” conviction.3 Challenging Dr. King during the late 1960s, the espousal of Black Power likewise grew alongside a growing number of Vietnam War protest movements. With intensified challenges to his role as a civil rights authority, Dr. King’s status as the chief agent of black empowerment was no longer unassailable. While the fragmentation of alliances and philosophies within the Black Freedom Movement and the broader Civil Rights Movement are by no means unfamiliar topics, Dr. King’s connection to the evolution of American popular music remains underexplored. As the Civil Rights Movement and its many factions evolved during the 1950s and throughout the 1960s, so too did black music’s popularity. Motown, Stax Records, Atlantic Records, and countless other prominent music-making centers steadily propelled soul and R&B into competitive positions within a Billboard Pop category historically dominated by white artists. Such a transition signaled that a fast growing number of American listeners were ready to embrace fresh talent from across the color line.