Back in the seventies everybody was funkin’ from Ohio Players, Confunkshun, Barkays, Heatwave, Lakeside, Shalamar, Slave, Debarge, & Even the Jacksons were getting their groove on. But the thing about the seventies was that you knew when a certain album was going to drop. But every single band waited to drop there album after Earth, Wind and Fire dropped there’s (in case they had to go back into the studio to do new songs to compete with E.W.F). Like cake cutters (Charles, you know what a cake cutter was (if you can find one they make nice back scratchers) and elephant bell bottoms coupled with the Isley Brothers fly away collar shirts. Shirts the Isleys brothers wore to “take you to the next phase of the groove they were laying down”, as long as there were platform shoes, you knew when Atlantic Starr dropped a album. Starpoint was right behind, when ConFunkShun dropped a album, Barkays right behind, you get my drift? But there was one band so hot at that time, they named their group after the hottest star in the universe, yes, yes yes. I’m talking about “Sun”!
Led by Beau Ray Fleming, M.I.T graduate, yes M.I.T and his partner Byron F. Byrd, they laid down some of the funkiest jams to date. As they added more members, some members left Sun (Shawn Sandridge, Chris Jones, and Dean Hummons and formed Dayton). Sun’s first album “Live On, Dream On” was a mediocre success but the third album yielded “Conscious”, you couldn’t go down the hallway at school and not hear that song, at parties when that song came on it was on, (and the album was a clear gold) by that time I was a sophomore in high school, and Slave had just released “Slide”. And I was sliding all over the place. I had a small afro in high school, but when my dad finished blow drying it, I look like Tito Jackson, and yes I was sporting cloths from the New Flagg Brothers Catalog that my dad used to get In the mail, topped off with a Members Only Jacket, the only jacket that can get you a girl or into the club (cause everybody thought those jackets were so expensive, people thought you had money (I was working at burger king) 1978 Sun released Sunburn with 3 fine models on the cover.
The first jam off this monumental album was “Sun Is Here” with that bass and drum syncopation, the bassline just repeats through the whole song, with minimal chord changes. You could work up a sweat with this song and continued to work up a sweat as the next song played “Dance Do What You Wanna” was a two-steppers song, with it’s basic beat and searing bass line, it was one of those songs you can sing along to. By the end of side one of this album, your shirt is sticking to your back with that sweat stain in the middle, and your blown-out afro was down to a natural fro. So you had to go outside to dry off (praying the wind was blowing).
Side two started off with 6 minutes of funk on “Long Drawn Out Thang” and if your old school you know what Sun talking about, now it’s time for the blue lights in the basement, and you got your girl up against the wall to Suns song “I Had A Choice”, which was the slow jam of the year.
I was driving my dads 1978/79 Oldsmobile cutlass salon with the captains seats, at that time I was rolling on 16’s, with the three piece wire wheels, and a eight track player (quickly changed that to a Kenwood cassette player with 4-ways in the back and 60 watt speakers in the front, no amp just pure natural sound.)
From platform shoes and bell-bottoms to the red light house parties on Saturday night, there was plenty of funk to go around, but it was that Sun album that set the party off from the first line;
“You come in numbers, to feel a groove, the groove to make ya act a fool, the night feels funky
Your sun is here” and that’s what we did! Came in numbers, acted a fool and got funky all in one night. Then we went to Taco Bell because at a house party, ain’t nobody serving food.
And I know for a fact that Charles still has his platform shoes and Members Only jacket, and still wears them with his creased blue jeans and apple hat.
You can find this classic funk cd at www.dustygroove.com
Marv D.
The Urban Music Scene
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