BASS MAN

Your 'dad' was a tuff musician. I have clear and deep recollections about him, WAR and what was around them at the time. It was an intense creativity in the air pulsating, pushing out powerful contrasts to the political and cultural scene in the early 1970's. Musicians at every level were compelled to listen to each other with deep ears and create from what was heard, what was generated in those moments of strong listening. It seemed the inner voice of musical fans in the Black community were integral to the movement of sound translated from spirit to wax influencing how Black men talked to Black women and thinking Black people developed into and from the possibility of being themselves.

It is hard to describe where your father fit in, but fit in he did. He shaped the bass sound around who he was becoming. He found his voice. It didn't matter there were bassists out there who could dance technical circles around him. We had Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke with Return to Forever, that European bass player with Weather Report, and others. It was the voice that matter! A musician had to have a voice. When a cat on any instrument had a distinct voice that meant everything. You left critics to voice who was the best, who was this or that. Didn't matter. A cat onstage playing his heart out in a style with a group as innovative as WAR was the 'shiggady'!!

Your father shaped a lot of cats.

He sat so deep in the pocket. His groove was so solid. When their records came out they came out the same time so many others came out and every sound from every band that contributed to the sound, and feel of the times influenced each other, and made sound connections with a spirit in the air that was being defined by music of, and from the soul!

Your pops was a strong man. Only strong men carried their sound that deep, so deep it connected Africa and the hard streets of the ghetto into a sound. It put heart to head and body to soul.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

October 6, 2016

This is my dad Morris BB Dickerson the original bassist for the group, WAR. Look at him on stage in his bad ass costume. I love you dad. - Angelique Dickerson‎ 10.5.16 

bassist B.B. Dickerson, the original bassist for WAR in the early 1970's.

For The Funk of IT!

Rosa Brighid by Michael Row at the Little Chelsea Gallery. June 2016.

In the hey day of the 1970's funk had taken over the world and amongst the wildest, if not the wildest of funk bands was Parliament Funkadelic! Their outrageous stories and characters from other worlds, the unbelievable thick, phat-tuh-death drum and base lines girding up the strength of the loins of the heavy brass and torrential rain storms of fiery guitar solos and riffs made the lyrics memorable. One of the philosophical spins atop of the funk came from one of the singers, Shiela Brody from an offshoot of the group, The Brides of Funkenstein, many years later. In retrospect and much older in an interview she said, "We are not remembered for what we do for ourselves."

Remember the funk of it all because it was African's music that liberated whatever was liberated within the soul of white folks. Which part of their emotional retardation mended came through the music, which penetrates the heart, as Bach is remember for noting and saying. Bach was of the African bloodlines himself.


- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Jan. 16, 2017

Rosa Brighid by Michael Row at The Little Chelsea Gallery. June 2016.

Funk Drummer, Mike Clark

Isn't this Mike Clark who played with the Headhunters in the 1970's? If so, he was the first powerful and deeply funky white drummer I'd ever watched play. Seeing that was deep. It dispelled the assertion, or rather the belief whites couldn't be funky. Mike Clark? That was a baad brother behind a set! In fact, he and Bill Summers, the world class percussionist, were playing together then in DC. at Constitution Hall early 1970's.

Killer show. I remember details. - Greg

"Outraged"

By Mike Clark

"The music of the late sixties/early seventies changed the world for awhile. I lived in "the hood" with Paul (Jackson) out in Oakland. We played a lot of Black Panther rallies with Angela Davis and Jesse Jackson. It was only because I was Paul's friend. They needed a drummer so they'd say, "c'mon." I got to hear and see a lot of speeches about stuff I didn't even know was going on in our country. I was outraged and it blew my mind."

 

...

*excerpt of my interview with MC from April 2013 Jake D Feinberg 

 

GODFATHER of GOGO beam me up, Chuck!!!!

Lead singer for the reggae band STEEL PULSE (r.) shaking the hand of the legendary Chuck Brown, who created GoGo music; the original sound of Washington DC (Chocolate City), and Tom Terrell at the Strathmore in early 2012.
photo by Dera Tompkins. 

Les Nubians-La Guerre

BLACK PRIDE, the lack thereof…

“I regret letting my third language languish (French). The lyrics of Les Nubian's song, La Guerre, reminds me of how unevolved Black Americans were when I returned to the States from living in Africa. Their resentment of anything remotely connected to deep African spirituality, and what was outside the vernacular of coarseness was astounding. Others and I let things let other languages we spoke reside in our mysterious backgrounds, and developed a coping skill that took time to stop simmering with resentment. We talked about it as a form of self-preservation. We had to go through pity into awareness of the dominating fears of Black America to understand the importance of Blacks to suckle on the ‘tit’ that informs identity.

In Black American culture as long as the idea of self is measured by how ‘we’ look, or come across to the Whites, and as long as our freedom is given to us we cannot own the most important thing: our own images!

I dig the song by Les Nubians. I get it.” - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Who's that lady / Mystic traveler

"What makes me smile to myself is yes all are made for a job by the Creator and all are made beautiful.  It is up to us all to find our job in life, and our beauty,and to never judge where you can help it, and if you do judge to take note that you did, and to remind yourself you are only human too. -Layla Ozdemir

Leila Lopez