Wednesday 18 January 2012

The Endless Groove


People tend to associate the groove with American R&B, but endless groove are everywhere.

You've got your Irish groove (U2, Bad), your American groove (John Lee Hooker, Boogie Chillun),  your Jamaican groove (Bob Marley, Get Up Stand Up), your English groove (The Cult, She Sells Sanctuary), your Guyanese groove (Eddy Grant, Electric Avenue), and your good old Canadian groove (April Wine, Say Hello).

You've got your classic soul groove (Aretha Franklin, Chain of Fools), your 80's New Wave R&B groove (The Fixx, One Thing Leads To Another), your low-down moanin' blues groove (John Lee Hooker, Tupelo), and your psychedelic boogie groove (Canned Heat, On The Road Again).

You've got your electrofunk groove (Marrs, Pump Up The Volume), your reggae groove (Bob Marley, Stir It Up), your folk groove (Donovan, Riki Tiki Tavi), your dance groove (k-os, Crabbukit), and your I-am-all-genres-at-once groove (Lenny Kravitz, Fly Away).

You wouldn't call Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix R&B guys, but they did it (All Along The Watchtower). Ditto Steve Miller (Wintertime), Bruce Cockburn (If A Tree Falls), and Collective Soul (December).

Maybe black people "own" the groove, 'cause they do dominate the list.  But white boys can definitely hold their own (Eric Burden, Spill The Wine; Van Morrison, Gloria; George Thorogood, Bad To The Bone; Warren Zevon, Werewolves Of London).

The groove is elemental.  It knows no boundaries.  It unites us all.

Groove on, people.

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