DJ Profile: Dx The Funky Grandpaw

Nights: Lonely Teardrops (San Francisco's only Doo Wop Night!); Teenage Dance Craze, 45 Club, Soul Revue



In conjunction with the fifth 45 Club , I asked Dx to tell us a little about soul & rnb music, and what it means to him, and why he chose to start the 45 club.. playing the funkier side of soul the last sunday of every month: i'll try to explain my take on the funky side of soul...

"i'm 53 years old. when i was a growing up, my Mom would always have music playing. and it was usually some sort of black music.from the smooth singing style of Miss Nancy Wilson,to the gritty sounds of James Brown & the Famous Flames.from the sweet & funky Gospel sounds of The Blind Boys Of Alabama to the swinging rhythms of The Nat King Cole Trio.from the the blue strains of Dinah Washington to thescreaming tearjerkers of Miss Aretha Franklin and of coursethe King of them all, Brother Ray Charles. my house wasalways filled with the sounds of soul & black music.(but not only that - we always had some sort of music going on in our house - blooze, country, jazz, mexican, rock & roll) and of course, my mother loved to dance! and then withthe advent of the transistor radio, i could take it all with me! back then radio was the "ruler of my heart"!i dreamed of playing records on the radio when i heard the voices of the Disk jockeys talking at me and spinningthe soundtrack to my teenage years! the sounds of The Coasters & The Drifters. Elvis and Little Richard andthen the new sound of rock & roll with the British Invasion -The Beatles, The Stones, The Dave Clark Five & more!i'm not sure if i realized it at the time, but all those new rock & roll sounds had their roots planted firmly in the soil of black music i heard at home on Long Players. and now those artists were getting a chance to be heard on the airwaves of America & a chance to become stars and get a piece of the pie! and how were they going to do that? the seven inch piece of plastic known as the 45 rpm record. meant to be heard on the new transistor radio, all the kids everywhere had to have! those sounds that made sure all the kids would be "Dancing In The Streets"! the sound that took you into the studio with the artists you knew had something good!the sound that made you feel great to be alive!The Sound Of Young America! the Motown sound was here!but that wasn't all. there were those nameless artists that were always down at the bottom of the Hot 500. who never got known, were rarely heard outside their circle of friends,but had all the soul, and all the funky dances that anyone could want. and not unlike the character Ruth Brown plays inJohn Waters original Hairspray: Motormouth Maybelle, theregional DJ's & record shop owners played the cuts that were made for pennies and became neighborhood hits. those were the records that just got down to business...no polish, no expensive arrangements or big name writers, just the drums, the horns, the sexy guitar and the gritty voices spitting out fire! screamers! dirty! raw! real! the sound that just got into your blood and made you wanna get down! unknowns witha mike in one hand and a bottle in the other! the sound that took root in poverty, was born out of the blooze, grew up in church, explored the world of jazz and finally became a "Soul Man"! sometimes dark. sometimes deep. and always real.the sounds i heard at home.thats what i mean by FUNKY!"