What It is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves: 1967. - CD - Various

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Funk emerged in the 1960s, a scorching sound that amped up the legacy of R&B and doo-wop in spirit and sonic intensity, and became the precursor of hip-hop which in fact revived funk for a new generation via sampling. While major artists topped the charts with funk hits throughout the '60 s & '70s, there were, hundreds of smaller songs, notes music journalist Oliver Wang in his liners, for whom 'airplay' rarely got better than hissing out of a rusted jukebox or crackling through the static on AM radio.WHAT IT IS! celebrates this heady, groove-heavy strain of gut bucket funk that remains a major force in American music. A 4-disccompendium that would take incalculable hours to collect in dusty bins at disappearing record shops, this box is culled mostly from the treasure-filled vaults of Atlantic, Atco, and Warner Bros. Records. It's an unprecedented shadow history of funk, pulling together rare sides from well-known artists and definitive funk grooves from lesser-known but supremely gifted masters of the art form alike.