Con Funk Shun

Initially assembled to support other acts, Con Funk Shun rose to prominence as one of the leading party-funk ensembles of the era and later shifted focus toward R&B ballads during the first half of the 1980s. In addition to supplying the core instrumentation for every release, the members also handled songwriting, arranging, and production duties across their entire catalog. After inking a deal with Mercury in 1976, the band reached the summit of the R&B charts the following year via “Ffun,” a track Michael Cooper crafted as an homage to the funk outfit Brick. During their decade-long tenure at the label, Con Funk Shun maintained a steady stream of successes that encompassed “Shake and Dance with Me,” “Chase Me,” and “Got to Be Enough,” while drawing consistent crowds on the concert circuit. By the 1980s the group’s ballad material garnered increasing attention, returning them to the R&B Top Ten with “Baby I’m Hooked (Right into Your Love),” “Electric Lady,” and “Burnin’ Love.” Although the ensemble disbanded following its final Mercury project, members reconvened in the 1990s to appear at oldies festivals.

The collective originated with high-school classmates Michael Cooper and Louis “Tony” McCall together with Karl Fuller, Paul “Maceo” Harrell, Dennis Johnson, Cedric Martin, and Danny “Sweet Man” Thomas, all of whom had performed together since their teenage years in Vallejo, CA. Felton Pilate, likewise a Vallejo native, came aboard once his own competing local band folded. Throughout the early 1970s the musicians served as the touring unit for the Soul Children under the moniker Project Soul and, during intervals off the road, collaborated with assorted Stax songwriters. Attempts in the mid-1970s to establish themselves as headliners yielded little traction until the group discovered opportunity at Audio Dimensions, the Memphis studio operated by producer Ted Sturges. It was during this period that the members adopted the name Con Funk Shun, borrowed from one of their own instrumental pieces. Over a three-year residency at the facility, Sturges functioned simultaneously as studio owner and the band’s producer, an arrangement that yielded the debut album Organized Con Funk Shun.

As the group’s sonic identity matured, Pilate and Cooper emerged as its principal lead vocalists. While preparations were under way for the first Crankshaft Productions, Inc. album, the eighth member, MC and technician Dennis Johnson, departed to enter seminary studies in California. The 1976 Mercury contract initiated a ten-year association with the label, during which “Ffun,” again credited to Michael Cooper and written in tribute to Brick, served as the inaugural hit. Burnin’ Love, the septet’s concluding Mercury release, was tracked without longtime musical anchor Felton Pilate, who exited in 1986 to pursue a career as a producer and would later supply the musical foundation for MC Hammer. Melvin Carter, already a frequent Con Funk Shun collaborator, stepped in following Pilate’s departure; that same year Michael Cooper embarked on a solo trajectory. Although the band formally dissolved after the Mercury era, it reunited in the 1990s and resumed appearances at festivals and concerts worldwide.