Con Funk Shun

Mar 19-Mar 20, 2010

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The band was formed by a pair of high school students in Vallejo, California, drummer Louis McCall and singer/guitarist Michael Cooper. The two got their start as a backup group for the Soul Children under the name Project Soul. They began working withStax Records staff songwriters, and while recording at Audio Dimensions, a Memphis, Tennessee sound studio, producer Ted Sturges both named the group (after an instrumental recording by The Nite-Liters) and produced their first album, Organized Con Funk Shun.
 
In 1976, Con Funk Shun signed to Mercury Records, releasing eleven albums over a span of ten years. The group's 1977 LP,Secrets, was certified gold in the US, as were 1978's Loveshine, 1979's Candy, and 1980's Spirit of Love.[1] They scored a string of top ten hits on the Billboard black singles chart, including 1977's "Ffun" (#1), 1978's "Shake and Dance with Me" (#5), 1979's "Chase Me" (#4), 1980s "Got to Be Enough" (#8), and "Too Tight" (#8). Tensions from within the group built over the 1980s, and the group's last album, Burning Love, was recorded without songwriter and vocalist Felton Pilate. After leaving Mercury, the band broke up in 1986, but some members of the group reunited alongside touring musicians for concerts in the 1990s.
 
Con Funk Shun continues to receive airplay on US soul radio stations that play music of the 1970s and '80s. Additionally, their back-beats have been repeatedly sampled by later artists in Hip Hop, R&B, and rap. Most recently, "Honey Wild", (written by Louis McCall; his wife, Linda Lou McCall; and Danny Thomas), from their 1980 Spirit of Love album was sampled by Lil Wayne for his CD Tha Carter III - Deluxe Edition. In 1996, Dru Hill featuring Keith Sweat covered the song on their self-titled début album.

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