We Want the Funk! A PBS Independent Lense Documentary
Why This Should’ve Gone Deeper and Left David Byrne Out
I watched this funk documentary last night and had to share some thoughts…
Look, I’m glad it was made, but any seconds spent on David Byrne and Elton John should’ve gone straight to Kool & the Gang, the Ohio Players, Cameo, Lakeside, Con Funk Shun, Slave, The J.B.’s, Rick James, The Meters, Go-Go music, Tower of Power, The Bar-Kays, The Gap Band, Brass Construction, Mandrill, Average White Band, Graham Central Station, Pleasure, B.T. Express, and War. Also, let’s not forget Earth, Wind & Fire. They may not have been strictly “funk,” but their influence in the ’70s was undeniable and MASSIVE.
Some so many non-Black musicians played real funk and are still alive and well—why not feature them instead of giving so much screen time to David Byrne? I don’t know why the whole black/white thing needs to be featured. And yes, “Fame” by David Bowie was a funky track-inspired Jerome Brailey and the P-Funk crew to write “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker,” but come on… a quick mention would’ve been enough—no need for a five-minute deep dive into Bowie’s painfully awkward Soul Train performance.
I’m saying this because I care. I love documentaries. I want them to be done right—and there need to be more of them. But if you’re gonna tell the story of funk, tell the whole story. Maybe I need to produce one.
Also—let’s not skip over this…
Ohio IS the funk capital of America. That’s not up for debate. But funk wasn’t just an Ohio thing. Different regions had their own distinct flavor. NYC funk hit differently than L.A., D.C., the Bay Area, or the Deep South. That kind of regional variation should’ve been part of the story.
And it’s not just that Ohio produced great funk bands—legends moved there. Even the Godfather himself, James Brown, set up shop in Ohio.
Speaking of James… they missed a golden opportunity to break down why his bands were so damn good. Sure, James was the ringleader—just like George Clinton was—but the musicians behind them were the real engine. The ones who executed the vision, shaped the sound, and created those timeless grooves? They deserve to be recognized by name.
And the Ohio Players? Come on—they should’ve had a solid five minutes all to themselves. Not just a shoutout in passing.
Documentaries like this shouldn’t just be a societal narrative filtered through the lens of so-called “Afro-futurists.” Ask the musicians who made the music. Ask them what was in their hearts, their minds, their communities. Maybe then, Louis Jordan would’ve gotten more airtime than Elton John.
Anyway… as you can tell, I’m passionate about this stuff. Just want to see the full picture get the spotlight it deserves.
I’m Clayton Craddock—a father, business owner, musician, and truth-seeker who believes in asking hard questions and thinking independently. I share my thoughts on ‘Deep Cuts’ to challenge the status quo and dig beneath the surface.
If you would like to connect, please get in touch with me at Clayton@claytoncraddock.com
Man knows his funk..... gotta say, as a (rather snobbish) jazz fan for much of my life, the one requirement I have for any other music to make it into my approved list has always been.... musicianship. Meaning that my tastes in music, and the standards I set on it, had been formed for life during my teens when I was a horn player in my high school jazz band in the late 1970s in CA. We were good, not as good as we thought we were, but we won enough awards and got enough crowds to dance and cheer and give us standing-O's, for me to know that it had taken us setting that high standard of musicianship for our performances to earn such acclaim as we did receive. Which has made me a harsh and unforgiving critic of all music ever since: if the tradesmen involved are not impressing me with their proficiency at their trade, I don't even want to hear it, they are wasting my time.
What I'd learned from my jazz-band years was that any ensemble must have 'that sound' as a whole, reliant not only on the proficiencies of the individual players but on how they sound as a group which makes them unique and worth paying attention to. I've seen everything from The Allman Brothers Band in hours-long live shows to saxophone quartets cadging dollar bills on busker-streets, who had 'that sound', and I'm here to tell ya, the Talking Heads DO NOT have that sound and never did....
As such, even though I am not familiar with at least half the bands you mention as not having been mentioned, I will state that Tower of Power's 'Walkin' Up Hip Street' (Urban Renewal album), and EWF's 'New World Symphony' (Gratitude) to this day remain high up on my approved-with-extreme-prejudice list for what can actually be called music, as opposed to a (who the hell is) David Byrne, for instance, whom I always regarded as just another yuppie-rock hitmaker and over-rated as such in every regard.
I could (and on occasion have) listen to the two selections I named again and again and still find them fresh and bold and damn-straight worthy of the musician's trade, but any time I even hear a bar or two of Byrne's fingernails-on-chalkboard voice or those overstated but underwhelming arrangements delivered by the Talking Heads, I want to make it go away and stop bothering me. There is music, and there is what is less than musical, and I do after all have my standards.