Cincinnati (In The Middle)
by Ric Stewart
 Cincinnati represents the less well known
points on this huge and dynamic journey
of sound. Capturing influences and performers from all directions,
Cincinnati was a major migration point and one of America's largest
cities from the days of the Underground Railroad until after WW II.
Regular musical visitors and residents included itinerant blues performers
such as 20's stars Bessie and Mamie Smith. In the 30's, Fats Waller
led the band at WLW, followed by blues guitarist John Lee Hooker and
flatpicker Merle Travis. In the 50's cocktail blues pianist Charles
Brown held some serious sway. The two distinct trunks of american music hit a merger; hillbilly and afro-american music
flourished and cross pollinated in the Ohio Valley. Later The Funk
exhibited particular strength spinning off regional acts such as the
Isley Bros., Ohio Players and Bootsy Collins. In the new milennium
fans could dig Walnut Hills grad Itaal Schur penning "Smooth"
with Rob Thomas for Carlos Santana's comeback hit, and hip hopper
Hitek rapping about the 'natti. In Cincinnati, the social climate
was often more relaxed than the colder, and more industrial North,
while still offering relative economic advantages over the South.
In the mid and late Sixties time stood still when James Brown brought
his energetic muse and New Breed of musicians to the Queen City to lay down time
defying grooves for King records. Capturing the
feeling were exceptional sidemen such as Bobby Byrd, Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis,
and later a young Bootsy Collins.
Known as the J.B.'s, they reorganized the rhythms from a charging Louis Jordan
styled jump blues into funk by moving the accented beat onto the one. In doing
so they paved a route for bands such as George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic,
Bootsy's Rubber Band, and every rap artist from Public Enemy to The Beastie Boys.
Songs like "Night Train" caused a trans-Atlantic stir all by themselves with
mod bands covering James Brown and
converting his hard-edged, high energy style into novel distortion guitar driven rhythm and
blues variations.
The changes to the music which occurred in Cincinnati reflect a stylization
of elements which also combined in other areas such as Memphis or St. Louis for a
stream of sound which paralleled the movement of people and goods (including
recordings) over the nation's waterways and roads. In Cincinnati a couple of
miles away from King recording studios between the April '68 dates for James
Brown's "Licking Stick Pts 1 & 2" and "In The
Middle Pt. 1," I was rushed to a hospital to be born
across the streets of a city ablaze from riots in the
aftermath of the assasination of Dr. King. Later I went to high school across
the street from this great music studio now serving as an innocuous ice cream
warehouse. The city's crosswinds may yet turn into a creative convection current,
hang on for the ride this milennium.
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