News & Updates — '70s Funk Rock

Pete Cosey is a Chicago guitar legend, a heavy man with a heavy sound. He is best known for his mid-'70s work for Miles Davis. Despite having never recorded as a leader, he has gotten on many sessions and had a notable career as a Hendrix-esque sonic poet. He was born into a jazz family in Chicago, his father played sax with Sidney Bechet, Louis Jordan, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Big Bill Broonzy and Josephine Baker, and his mother was a composer. He spent his teenage years in Tucson but came back to Chicago for some session work at Chess. He...

One of the greatest of jazz Hammond organists, Larry Young (aka Khalid Yasin Abdul Aziz) played with Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Grant Green, Santana, Booker Ervin and others in a career that played bop, soul-jazz, blues, psych-rock, avant-garde jazz, modal and funk-rock. The Lawrence of Newark was born in Jersey and learned organ and piano from his father. He played R&B in the '50s before working with Kenny Dorham, Lou Donaldson, Hank Mobley and others. He recorded for Prestige and Blue Note in the '60s before hooking up with Hendrix on some well-circulated (and worthy) sessions. He played...

Glam rock superstar Marc Bolan was born on this day. Born in London as Mark Feld to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, he grew up listening to the rock & roll boom. He started playing guitar at 9 and had a skiffle band as a teenager. As a young mod he did some acting and found good work as a model, as well as dabbling in poetry. He may have worked with Joe Meek as early as '63 but this is disputed. He changed his name to Toby Tyler and recorded some cover songs in '64. He signed to Decca in...

One of the most-called session men of his day, the Comanche/Kiowa tribal guitarist/pianist Jesse Ed Davis was born on this day in 1944. His father Jesse was a well-known "True Indian" painter. The younger Davis got his musical career started in his native Oklahoma in a band in the late '50s with future Blood Sweat & Tears vocalist Jerry Fisher. In the mid-'60s he went on the road as a member of Conway Twitty's band before settling in California. Through friends Leon Russell and Levon Helm he got acquainted with the studio scene and started working as a session man/secret...

A left-field favorite of mine, Sylvester James Jr became a hugely popular disco singer and a gay icon. But to my ears his best work was with his funky Hot Band, a staple of our '70s Funk Rock DJ parties. But the real story was his colorful life as a flamboyantly out-and-proud gay man with a love for cross-dressing and a creamy falsetto who came to be acknowledged as "the Queen of Disco". From Watts, he sang gospel as a child but was kicked out of the church due to his sexual orientation. He and his gay & trans friends...