Today in 1969, a session for soul and funk icon James Brown that led to one of the most famous drum patterns ever put on record.
The song was called “Funky Drummer,” and the drummer for whom the song is named was Clyde Stubblefield.
He was born in Tennessee in 1943; he says he tried to play beats on makeshift drums even as a young kid.
In 1965, James Brown heard the 22 year old play at a club in Macon, Georgia, and hired him that same day.
You can hear Stubblefield playing on some of Brown’s biggest and most influential songs, from “Cold Sweat” to “Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud” and “Mother Popcorn.”
The session for his best-known performance took place in Cincinnati.
Stubblefield says the band had been traveling and wanted to sleep at the hotel, but James Brown brought them to the studio, where they improvised a long track.
At one point Brown shouted “Hit it!” and then it was just Stubblefield, playing a drum pattern that was funky and danceable and complex and captivating all at once.
As the tape continued rolling, Brown announced that the name of the song had to be “Funky Drummer.”
Stubblefield’s beat took on a life of its own, long after he left Brown’s band in 1970.
Early hip hop artists were experimenting with sampling, building new songs with clips from familiar ones.
So-called breakbeats from R&B tracks got sampled over and over.
The solo section from “Funky Drummer” is considered the most sampled beat ever; it’s shown up in songs by Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Sinead O’Connor, Kylie Minogue, Run-DMC, De La Soul, The Beastie Boys, George Michael and many more.
Unfortunately, the drummer who created that beat didn’t see royalties for any of its uses, even the original: legally Stubblefield was an employee, so the royalties and credit went to James Brown.
Stubblefield did win a lot of respect from fellow musicians; he was hailed as one of the greatest drummers of all time.
Some of his sticks are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And in my hometown, Madison, Wisconsin, where Stubblefield lived and played for decades, it’s long been a point of pride to say this was the hometown of the original funky drummer.
Today in 2021, the premiere of the movie “Sooyii,” the first movie filmed entirely in the Blackfoot language, and one that was also filmed completely on tribal land.
To help the actors with their lines, the director recorded all of the dialogue, sent the cast the recordings and gave them four weeks to practice.
Sounds like the strategy worked
Funky Drummer — pop history was made when James Brown hollered ‘Hit it!’ (Financial Times)
Film shot entirely in Blackfoot language, on tribal land to premiere (The Missoulian)
