A Land of Funk: Dayton, Ohio

Abstract

Funk, a fusion of jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock, was a popular trend in African American music during in the late 1970s. The roots of this genre, however, run wide and deep. A walk through virtually any predominantly black urban neighborhood in the 1970s decade may have been accompanied by a soundtrack supplied by bands rehearsing or playing at an outdoor gathering at a park. This chapter explores an overlooked site in the history of funk music and, more broadly, African American culture in Dayton, Ohio, also known as “The Land of Funk.” Although funk during its peak years—roughly 1975 to the early 1980s—had regionally specific styles and forms of expression, a disproportionately large number of funk bands recording with major labels came from Dayton: Ohio Players (Westbound and Mercury), Slave (Cotillion/Atlantic), Lakeside (Solar), Roger and Zapp (Warner Bros.), Sun (Capitol), Faze-O (S.H.E./Atlantic), Platypus (Casablanca), Dayton (Liberty), Shadow (Elektra), Junie (Westbound and CBS), and Heatwave (Epic).¹ Additionally, there were countless Dayton bands that did not attain recording contracts but maintained a local following. In spite of these developments, scholarly acknowledgement of Dayton as a funk epicenter is only beginning to emerge.