4. Johnny ‘Guitar’ WatsonFunk Beyond The Call Of Duty
I like his playing enormously. I like it because he is always slightly flat! Maybe it is a funk thing? He sings in this weird way, plays in that way as well – there is something so brilliant about it. And he was such a showman.
I don’t know too much about him. I know he started in the 50s, playing a rock and roll, Chuck Berry thing. And he had this weird edge, this real charisma. This album is really good fun.
I got back into it recently because my kids were listening to Uptown Funk. They were saying how great it was and I was like, “You have to listen to the real funk going on here !”
I find myself revisiting all this stuff, through that, trying to get them on track and alert them to the originals in a really annoying dad kind of way. “You want to hear this track by The Commodores.” They are quite into it.
They love James Brown. Some things they really connect with. And I’m very grateful to The Guardians Of The Galaxy for its soundtrack, because my kids now love a lot of 70s music. Whereas before when I told them to listen to this track or watch this black and white film – “not another grey film, dad!” – once that soundtrack came out, it opened up a whole new world to them. I don’t know much about Johnny Guitar Watson, but you can’t argue with this album’s funkiness.
