70s Funk: Why War Out-Charted Every Other Act
Ask most fans to name the genre's biggest act.
You'll hear Parliament, Kool & the Gang, or Earth, Wind & Fire.
This site's year-end Hot 100 data tells a different story about 70s funk.
One band actually shows up more than any other act tagged with that label.
That band isn't who most lists lead with.
Eric Burdon and War performing, 1971.
Image credit: Photo via Hit Parader Magazine, September 1971, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
70s Funk: Play the Songs
Here are 58 70s funk songs from this site's Year-End Hot 100 data, from 1970 to 1979.
Each is tagged funk. Press Play on any row to watch it here, and tap a heading to sort.
| Play | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) | Sly & the Family Stone | 1970 | 19 | ||
| Spill the Wine | Eric Burdon & War | 1970 | 20 | ||
| Love Land | Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band | 1970 | 50 | ||
| Express Yourself | Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band | 1970 | 57 | ||
| I Just Want to Celebrate | Rare Earth | 1971 | 66 | ||
| Funky Nassau | The Beginning of the End | 1971 | 75 | ||
| Theme from Shaft | Isaac Hayes | 1971 | 89 | Yes | |
| I Gotcha | Joe Tex | 1972 | 6 | ||
| Outa-Space | Billy Preston | 1972 | 22 | ||
| Slippin' into Darkness | War | 1972 | 23 | ||
| Scorpio | Dennis Coffey | 1972 | 43 | ||
| Jungle Fever | The Chakachas | 1972 | 51 | ||
| Family Affair | Sly & the Family Stone | 1972 | 79 | Yes | |
| Troglodyte (Cave Man) | The Jimmy Castor Bunch | 1972 | 80 | ||
| Get on the Good Foot | James Brown | 1972 | 99 | ||
| Will It Go Round in Circles | Billy Preston | 1973 | 8 | Yes | |
| That Lady | The Isley Brothers | 1973 | 21 | ||
| Right Place Wrong Time | Dr. John | 1973 | 24 | ||
| Superstition | Stevie Wonder | 1973 | 26 | Yes | |
| Keep on Truckin' | Eddie Kendricks | 1973 | 35 | Yes | |
| If You Want Me to Stay | Sly & the Family Stone | 1973 | 43 | ||
| The Cisco Kid | War | 1973 | 55 | ||
| Higher Ground | Stevie Wonder | 1973 | 62 | ||
| Superfly | Curtis Mayfield | 1973 | 65 | ||
| Funky Worm | Ohio Players | 1973 | 84 | ||
| Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) | Deodato | 1973 | 90 | ||
| Gypsy Man | War | 1973 | 93 | ||
| The World Is a Ghetto | War | 1973 | 94 | ||
| Come and Get Your Love | Redbone | 1974 | 4 | ||
| Jungle Boogie | Kool & the Gang | 1974 | 12 | ||
| Tell Me Something Good | Rufus & Chaka Khan | 1974 | 56 | ||
| Hollywood Swinging | Kool & the Gang | 1974 | 59 | ||
| Me and Baby Brother | War | 1974 | 95 | ||
| Shining Star | Earth, Wind & Fire | 1975 | 7 | Yes | |
| Pick Up the Pieces | Average White Band | 1975 | 21 | Yes | |
| Why Can't We Be Friends? | War | 1975 | 24 | ||
| Boogie On Reggae Woman | Stevie Wonder | 1975 | 26 | ||
| Fight the Power | The Isley Brothers | 1975 | 29 | ||
| Fire | Ohio Players | 1975 | 31 | Yes | |
| Cut the Cake | Average White Band | 1975 | 71 | ||
| Do It ('Til You're Satisfied) | B.T. Express | 1975 | 80 | ||
| Play That Funky Music | Wild Cherry | 1976 | 5 | Yes | |
| Love Rollercoaster | Ohio Players | 1976 | 30 | Yes | |
| Sweet Thing | Rufus | 1976 | 44 | ||
| I'll Be Good to You | The Brothers Johnson | 1976 | 61 | ||
| Summer | War | 1976 | 74 | ||
| Who'd She Coo? | Ohio Players | 1976 | 86 | ||
| Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) | Parliament | 1976 | 93 | ||
| Dazz | Brick | 1977 | 41 | ||
| I Wish | Stevie Wonder | 1977 | 51 | Yes | |
| The Groove Line | Heatwave | 1978 | 49 | ||
| (Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again | L.T.D. | 1978 | 57 | ||
| You and I | Rick James | 1978 | 76 | ||
| Serpentine Fire | Earth, Wind & Fire | 1978 | 77 | ||
| Flash Light | Parliament | 1978 | 92 | ||
| Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) | The Jacksons | 1979 | 25 | ||
| Every 1's a Winner | Hot Chocolate | 1979 | 55 | ||
| September | Earth, Wind & Fire | 1979 | 78 |
Year-End Rank is the song's spot on that year's Billboard Year-End Hot 100.
That list keeps only the top 100 songs of each year.
The #1 Hit column marks songs that also reached number one on the weekly chart.
What Actually Counts as 70s Funk
The Rhythm Concept Behind It All
The whole genre grew out of one specific rhythmic idea.
Musicians call it the One.
It's a heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, instead of the backbeat soul and R&B usually leaned on.
James Brown's band built that concept into a real sound in the late 1960s.
The full story of how "the One" took shape lives on this site's own James Brown feature.
The Genre's Five Real Branches
70s funk took that foundation and split it into several overlapping styles.
Five real branches show up across this site's own artist data.
- P-Funk: George Clinton's Parliament and Funkadelic universe
- Soul-funk: horn-driven bands like the Bar-Kays and Tower of Power
- Jazz-funk: instrumental acts like Herbie Hancock and Donald Byrd
- Dance-funk: chart-built groups like Kool & the Gang and Cameo
- Afro-funk: War and Mandrill, pulling in Latin and African rhythm
This site's own artist database tracks 50 real 70s funk acts across all of those branches.
No single style dominates the roster.
That range is exactly why one chart-topping band gets overlooked so often.
The 70s Funk Act That Out-Charted Everyone
How War Got Its Start
War's own origin story starts years before the band had that name.
A group of Long Beach musicians called themselves the Creators back in 1962.
By 1968 they'd become Nightshift, backing NFL defensive back Deacon Jones at local clubs.
A producer spotted them at a North Hollywood club called the Rag Doll.
He paired the band with former Animals singer Eric Burdon.
The new group, billed as Eric Burdon and War, hit almost immediately.
Their song "Spill the Wine" reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.
Burdon left the group within a year.
War kept going without him, and kept charting.
The Chart Record Nobody Talks About
"The Cisco Kid" reached number two on the Hot 100 in 1973.
Only Tony Orlando and Dawn held it off the top spot.
War's real chart record is easy to underestimate.
Check this site's year-end Hot 100 data for every act tagged as 70s funk.
War shows up seven separate times under its own name.
That beats Parliament, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind & Fire individually.
None of the usual "greatest 70s funk bands" lists lead with that fact.
Most don't mention it at all.
George Clinton's Parallel Funk Universe
Why Two Bands Became One Empire
George Clinton didn't set out to run two bands at once.
He was forced into it.
Clinton's earlier group, the Parliaments, hit a wall in 1968 when their label, Revilot, collapsed into bankruptcy.
The legal mess left Clinton unable to record new music under the Parliaments name.
So he rebranded the same backing musicians as Funkadelic and signed them to Westbound Records instead.
Once the legal dust settled, Clinton revived the Parliament name too, this time on Invictus and later Casablanca Records.
Two names, one group of musicians, two separate contracts.
That split became a permanent feature of Clinton's career, not a temporary fix.
Bootsy Collins joined that world in 1972, straight out of James Brown's band.
His own path from Brown's J.B.'s to Clinton's orbit is covered in full on this site's James Brown feature.
The Mothership and the $275,000 Show
By 1976, Clinton had turned the whole enterprise into a real spectacle.
The P-Funk Earth Tour introduced the Mothership, a smoke-spewing stage prop that "landed" onstage to close every show.
Casablanca Records reportedly gave Clinton a $275,000 production budget for it.
That was the largest amount ever allocated to a Black music act's tour at the time.
The original prop didn't survive.
The group's management dumped it in a Maryland junkyard in 1982 once the money to store it ran out.
A 1990s replica now sits on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The 70s Funk Artists Worth Knowing
Beyond War and the Clinton universe, a wide roster carried the genre through the rest of the decade.
- Earth, Wind & Fire
- Kool & the Gang
- Ohio Players
- Sly and the Family Stone
- Rick James
- Cameo
- Tower of Power
- The Brothers Johnson
- Con Funk Shun
- Zapp
Sly Stone's Isolated Masterpiece
Sly and the Family Stone's story took a real turn early in the decade.
By 1971, Sly Stone was recording largely alone.
He holed up in a home studio instead of working with his full band.
He leaned on a Maestro Rhythm King drum machine to build beats.
Then he layered live overdubs on top of its presets.
The result, There's a Riot Goin' On, is widely considered the first major album built around a drum machine's sound.
It's a far darker, more isolated record than the band's earlier hits.
Curious which 70s funk act fits your own taste?
Try the Random Artist Picker and see who comes up.
Or spin something at random from the era entirely with the Random 70s Song Generator.
Sources
The chart counts and ranks come from this site's own Billboard data, described on the methodology page.
Background on the genre and its acts can be checked against these outside sources:
- Wikipedia: Funk for the genre's history and style.
- Wikipedia: Parliament-Funkadelic for George Clinton's two bands.
- Wikipedia: War for the band's history and chart record.
- Wikipedia: Sly and the Family Stone for the band's history.
Frequently Asked Questions
What defines 70s funk?
The genre is built on syncopated basslines, tight horn sections, and a rhythmic emphasis on the first beat of the measure, a concept musicians call the One.
It splits into overlapping styles, including P-Funk, soul-funk, jazz-funk, and dance-funk, each pulling the same rhythmic foundation in a different direction.
James Brown's band pioneered the sound in the late 1960s, years before it exploded into its own full genre across the decade.
Which 70s funk act charted the most songs?
War appears more often in this site's year-end Hot 100 data than any other act carrying that tag, with seven year-end singles under the band's own name.
That beats Parliament, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind & Fire individually.
War's real chart performance was often even stronger, including a number two peak for The Cisco Kid in 1973.
What's the difference between Parliament and Funkadelic?
Parliament and Funkadelic were the same core group of musicians performing under two different names on two different record labels.
George Clinton created Funkadelic in 1970 after a contract dispute left the band unable to record as The Parliaments.
Splitting the group across two labels let Clinton keep releasing music through the legal mess, and the dual identity became a defining feature of his career.
Who are the essential 70s funk artists?
Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, and the Ohio Players anchor the genre's biggest sound.
Sly and the Family Stone and War pushed funk in more experimental directions, blending rock and Latin influences into the groove.
Behind the scenes, players like Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, and Fred Wesley carried James Brown's rhythmic blueprint into their own funk careers.
How is 70s funk different from disco?
The genre centers on a syncopated, bass-driven groove built for a band to improvise over.
Disco built its sound around a steady four-on-the-floor beat designed for uninterrupted dancing.
The two genres share real DNA, since disco grew directly out of funk and soul rhythms.
Funk kept its rougher edges and live-band feel even as disco polished those same grooves for the dance floor.
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