Popularized by James Brown in the mid-to-late sixties, funk upended traditional pop song forms through its new emphasis on complex, interlocking rhythms. Prioritizing danceability above all else, funk both magnified and elevated the rhythm section, pushing it beyond the confines of simply providing support and accompaniment. As part of this aesthetic shift, the electric bass took on an expanded role: it became funk’s focal point, the primary driver of the groove. While Brown has been widely celebrated as funk’s founding father, relatively little attention has been paid to his bass players.

This presentation chronicles the development of funk bass playing across James Brown’s recorded output in the 1960s and early 1970s. Building on the work of Allan Slutsky, RJ Smith, and Anne Danielsen, I reconstruct Brown’s rotating lineup of bassists and contextualize their individual contributions within the larger trajectory of Brown’s career—from his early successes in rhythm & blues, to his crossover appeal at the end of the Civil Rights Movement, and finally to his becoming an outspoken advocate for Black Pride. Working together, Brown and his bassists crafted syncopated bass lines that helped establish funk as one of the most culturally significant styles of Black popular music. At the same time, their stories reveal the thorniness of Brown’s collaborative process, as well as funk’s complex relationship to the larger conflicts surrounding Black politics and identity in the post-civil rights era.

Dr. Brian F. Wright is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas, where he specializes in the history of American popular music. He holds a Ph.D. in historical musicology from Case Western Reserve University and is a former research assistant for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archive. His book-length history of the electric bass, The Bastard Instrument, received the 2025 Deems Taylor / Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Book in Pop Music, and his work has appeared in the Journal of the Society for American Music and the Journal of Popular Music Studies, as well as in Vintage Guitar and Bass Player Magazine.