Soul Funk Disco / Brothers & Sisters / Volume Two 1968 – 1971
1968 – 1970
1 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE / Dance To The Music / Single A Side January 1968
2 SAM & DAVE / Wrap It Up / Single B Side January 1968
3 ARETHA FRANKLIN / Since You’ve Been Gone / Lady Soul February 1968
4 ARCHIE BELL & THE DRELLS / Tighten Up / Single A Side March 1968
5 THE INTRUDERS / Cowboys To Girls / Single A Side March 1968
6 RUFUS THOMAS / The Memphis Train / Single A Side May 1968
7 TYRONE DAVIS / Can I Change My Mind / Single A Side June 1968
8 MAURICE & MAC / You Left The Water Running / Single A Side June 1968
9 JOHNNY JOHNSON & THE BANDWAGON / Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache /
Single A Side August 1968
10 ARETHA FRANKLIN / The House That Jack Built / Single A Side August 1968
11 JAMES BROWN / Say It Loud I’m Black And I’m Proud Part 1 / Single A Side September 1968
12 THE DELLS / There Is / There Is October 1968
13 DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES / Love Child / Love Child December 1968
14 THE STAPLE SINGERS / When Will We Be Paid / Single A Side January 1969
15 THE ISLEY BROTHERS / It’s Your Thing / Single A Side February 1969
16 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE / Everyday People / Stand! April 1969
17 THE TEMPTATIONS / Cloud Nine / Cloud Nine March 1969
18 JERRY BUTLER / Only The Strong Survive / The Ice Man Cometh May 1969
19 DAVID RUFFIN / I’ve Lost Everything I’ve Ever Loved / My Whole World Ended May 1969
20 THE IMPRESSIONS / Mighty Mighty / The Young Mod’s Forgotten Story June 1969
21 ISAAC HAYES / Walk On By / Hot Buttered Soul July 1969
22 WILLIAM BELL / My Whole World Is Falling Down / Bound To Happen October 1969
23 THE DELFONICS / Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time / Single A Side January 1970
24 SYL JOHNSON / Different Strokes / Is It Because I’m Black March 1970
25 DORIS DUKE / I Can’t Do Without You / I’m A Loser April 1970
26 CHARLES WRIGHT & THE WATTS 103RD ST. RHYTHM BAND / Express Yourself /
Express Yourself May 1970
27 THE TEMPTATIONS / Ball Of Confusion / Single A Side May 1970
1970 - 1971
1 JAMES BROWN / Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine / Single A Side July 1970
2 CLARENCE CARTER / Patches / Single A Side September 1970
3 CURTIS MAYFIELD / If There’s A Hell Below / Curtis September 1970
4 FUNKADELIC / Funky Dollar Bill / Free Your Mind October 1970
5 MACEO & ALL THE KINGS MEN / Got To Getcha / Doing Their Own Thing November 1970
6 AL GREEN / I Can’t Get Back To You / Single A Side November 1970
7 HONEY CONE / Are You Man Enough? / Sweet Replies January 1971
8 THE STAPLE SINGERS/ Heavy Makes You Happy / Staple Swingers February 1971
9 SHUGGIE OTIS / Strawberry Letter #23 / Freedom Flight February 1971
10 BOBBY BYRD / I Know You Got Soul / Single A Side May 1971
11 BILL WITHERS / Harlem / Just As I Am June 1971
12 BILLY PRESTON / Outta Space / I Wrote A Simple Song June 1971
13 MARVIN GAYE / Inner City Blues / Whats Going On June 1971
14 GIL SCOTT HERON / The Revolution Will Not Be Televised / Pieces Of A Man June 1971
15 EDWIN STARR / Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On / Involved July 1971
16 THE CHI-LITES / For Gods Sake Give More Power To The People / Single A Side August 1971
17 ISAAC HAYES / Theme From Shaft / Shaft Soundtrack August 1971
18 FUNKADELIC / Can You Get To That / Maggot Brain August 1971
19 JAMES BROWN & THE JB’S / Hot Pants / Hot Pants August 1971
20 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE / Luv N’ Haight / There’s A Riot Goin’ On November 1971
21 BETTY WRIGHT / Clean Up Woman / Single A Side November 1971
22 ISAAC HAYES / Good Love / Black Moses December 1971
The years 1968 to 1971 were a period of social and political upheaval, when the hippy love-in turned to grim reality. It was also the most fertile and inspirational time in soul history. Black consciousness continued to rise but as more radical Black Nationalism and Black Power. Visions of the ghetto became the overriding image of black America, albeit glamorised as a dark inversion of the American Dream.
Ultimately, this glorification would be a dead end and no-one felt the effects, or raged against the dying of the light as much as Sly And The Family Stone. While others paid lip service to such sixties ideals as racial integration, sexual equality and fighting the establishment, the erstwhile Sylvester Stewart put the rhetoric into practice with some of the most radical, perfectly crafted, galvanizing music ever. And when all those ideals had crashed and burned, and Marvin Gaye was making What’s Going On as an article of faith in music, Sly was highlighting his pessimism by cynically pointing out that actually nothing was going on.
At the same time but on a different planet, James Brown started to economise and refine funk still further, the tiniest grunt or ‘Good God’ meaning everything. Without doubt he was the most assertively black personality ever accorded mainstream acceptance in America. The great esteem in which he was held was exemplified on the 4th April 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. TV stations in cities with large black populations aired a live JB concert in the vain hope it would prevent rioting: it worked.
Sly Stone and James Brown weren’t the only ones going their own way. More and more artists were adopting ‘black’ profiles and breaking free from the corporate chains to experiment as they pleased. There were many records considered radical for the times and even Motown was dragged into the modern world, initially by Norman Whitfield’s groundbreaking work with The Temptations, and then by Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin On, soul’s first and greatest concept album.
It was a period when new boundaries were being drawn, whether it was Curtis Mayfield creating the template for blaxploitation soundtracks or Isaac Hayes stepping forward as the very essence of blackness or George Clinton’s Parliament / Funkadelic family creating P-Funk from the ruins of Detroit. They were all so different and unique, and they were all cutting the chains of the past to create a new future.
