2022 Spring

Classes are now free of charge with your UMASC Membership.

Archived

WHAT DA FUNK:
Early 70’s to Early 80’s Soul and Funk

Instructor: Frank Johnson

Wednesdays • 8 classes • 3/23-5/11 • 10:00 AM-12:00 PM

Class size 5-50 students
43 seats remaining
Location: Zoom only

This class is a follow-up to the Fall 2019 course Soul Music: The Soundtrack of a Generation. This course will provide a survey of musical artists and styles focusing on different cities and regions such as LA, the Bay Area, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis Ohio, New York/New Jersey, the P-Funk Mob and James Brown. The artists will include well-known musicians like Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, the Commodores, and Kool and the Gang plus many artists who had hits on the R&B charts that didn’t reach the pop charts.

We will discuss topics such as how the music reflected the changing African American community culture, the emergence of multi-racial bands (Sly and the Family Stone, WAR, Tower of Power, etc.) and how funk helped shape the development of hip-hop.

Frank Johnson has a lifelong passion and interest in African-American music: jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, soul, and Afro-Latin. He has a collection of over 4,000 albums covering these genres. In addition, he has a personal library of over 250 books on African-American musical styles, musicians and cultural influences.