Re: PBS Rock and Roll

Elson Trinidad (ertrinid@skat.usc.edu)
Thu, 28 Sep 1995 17:27:08 -0700 (PDT)


On Thu, 28 Sep 1995, Joe Spaeth wrote:

> Last night, one hour of the 10 hr series "rock and roll" was on early 70's
> funk. Did anyone catch it? They began with James Brown, then Sly and the
> Family Stone, and then spent about 30 minutes on Parlament-Funkadelic and a
> few minutes on disco. I was disappointed that some of the best funk of
> that era wasn't even mentioned. Overall, the show left me a little flat.

I saw it, it was fantastic. I've been watching since Sunday night (though
I had absolutely no interest in the Hippie 60s episodes on Tuesday.
Larry Graham playing during his interview was wonderful. Ditto for
Maceo, Fred and Jabo (though they just talked, still it was nice).

I also learned a whole lot - I never realized the JB horns functioned in
the same way a background vocal section would. Also, the scene where
JB said, "I gotcha!" to his drummer during the concert footage blew me
away (with JB saying what he said not as vocal adlib, but pointing out
the drummer's missed cue).

It was well-done mainly because it was partly produced by the BBC, and we
all know how those British people know american music better than us
Americans do... :)

Elson