Funk Inc.: Superfunk [BGP]

Why you'll love it

This BGP reissue was cut with Direct Metal Mastering and pressed in France. "Goodbye, So Long" has been widely sampled over the years, and David Axelrod's arrangements give the band a big, brassy, widescreen sound.

This edition

• Direct Metal Mastering
• Pressed in France
• Stereo mix

About the album

Indianapolis rarely gets top billing when people talk about funk, but organist Bobby Watley gave the city a claim in 1969 when he built Funk Inc. around his Hammond B-3. Producer Bob Porter signed them to Prestige in 1971, and for their fourth album the label sent them west to Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, where David Axelrod took charge in July 1973.

Axelrod surrounds the core band of Watley, tenor man Gene Barr, guitarist Steve Weakley, drummer Jimmy Munford and conga player Cecil Hunt with a horn section of Jackie Kelso, Ollie Mitchell, Allen DeRienzo and George Bohanon. "Message From The Meters" opens on a New Orleans strut with Munford singing, Watley takes the vocal on the slow-burning "Goodbye, So Long," and "The Hill Where the Lord Hides" stretches out into electric jazz. Munford is back at the mic for "Honey, I Love You" and "Just Don't Mean a Thing," and Barr sings the closer, "I'm Going to Love You."

Ace Records brought the Prestige albums back in England in the early 1990s, just as the acid jazz scene was hunting for this sound. And yes, that's Johnny 'Guitar' Watson on bass, which is rather like asking a master chef to do the washing up and finding he's brilliant at that too.

Also at Kops: more Funk Inc. on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Prestige / BGP (cat# BGPD 1060), a reissue of the 1973 album.