"Sanctified People Got More Fire"

"A single thread ties most of rock 'n' roll’s pioneers together: From Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to Little Richard and James Brown, many of the founding giants of rock grew up in Pentecostal churches. Pentecostal services were dramatic affairs. Worshipers shouted and danced until they fell to the floor, then sprang back up, healed of what had ailed them or speaking in tongues. Behind the hellfire preaching and general pandemonium was hot music: pianos and drums, tambourines and triangles, saxophones and trumpets, all whipping the congregation into ecstasy. Skeptical journalists and respectable Christians alike scoffed at the miracle cures and snickered at the 'thinly veiled eroticism of the devotees,' but as one black Pentecostal told a curious anthropologist, 'A lot of folks talk about getting too emotional. I wouldn't give two cents for a religion that wouldn't make me move.'"

Paul W. Gleason at The Hedgehog Review reviews Randall J. Stephens's The Devil's Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll.

"An Entirely New, Ecumenical Funk"

"Then the wave crested and rolled back. Clinton started hanging out a bit too much with his idol Sly Stone, and they began sharing song ideas and a crack pipe. There are mordantly humorous stories in the book about Sly and Clinton scoring drugs together, such as the time they were busted in front of Denny's in Hollywood, the cops announcing, 'well if it isn't Sly Stone and Dr. Funkenstein.' All the while, two members of Clinton's managerial inner circle began surreptitiously grabbing pieces of his funk empire."


Marc Weingarten in the Los Angeles Times reviews George Clinton's Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?

"National Funk Congress Deadlocked On Get Up/Get Down Issue"

"Upon learning of Brown's remarks, Downocratic leaders openly questioned his commitment to getting up. Said Robert 'Kool' Bell, a top-ranking Brick House Downocrat: 'It is a well-known fact that Brown has, on many past occasions, urged his supporters to get down with they bad selves. In response to his inconsistent voting record and history of waffling on this crucial issue, we will not rest until every American, as is their birthright, has gotten down.'
"'You got to get down,' Bell added. 'Hyuh!'"

From The Onion, 1999.