I wasn’t sure I should get any Zapp, since it’s really only tangentially related to p-funk. But I decided it was worth at least getting a greatest hits album, and since it had all the highlights from Zapp and Roger on one disc, it seemed like good value.
Only problem is, I really funking love it - a lot of it is better than what George was doing during the same time. Maybe that’s sacreligious, but it’s awesome. I have decided to dive in and get the whole Zapp Catalog.
Did you know it’s not difficult or expensive to do? There are two 2CD compilations that together contain all five original Zapp albums, and another one that contains the first 3 Roger albums. Then you just buy his 1991 release separately, and you’ve pretty much got it all. I mean technically, you could go further and get the post-2000 releases by the rest of Zapp, but seeing as they don’t feature Roger, I highly doubt they are all that essential - plus a couple of them look like they’d be real bastards to hunt down, too.
I’m really only familiar with More Bounce by them. They’re one of those bands that in the back of my mind I guess I just decided I didn’t ready need to look into them further. But maybe I ought to considering how much you seem to like them. Thanks for the heads up. I may have to go 'head and check em out!
Zapp & Roger make (P-) Funk of the highest order and are one of the most influential modern Funk groups going, not forgetting Rogers amazing production talents, When it comes to west coast hip hop they are giants and they are almost solely responsible for G-Funk amongst other things…
Huge fan of Zapp here. Seen them live several times from opening the '81 P-Funk tour on up. Shirley Murdock, The Human Body, New Horizons, all of it. Saw Roger open for Bootsy summer 1993. Best and funkiest things they did to me is the first Zapp album and Many Facets of Roger. But quality music throughout the whole catalog.
In a 15-year period between 1976 and 1991, Roger put out 12 albums: 5 as Zapp, 4 as Roger, 3 as The Human Body. He was very prolific. But in the 8 years after that until his death, he never put out another full-length album. Does anyone know what caused such a change in his volume of output?
Not worth its own thread, but I had a question about a song:
This is Zapp & Roger live in 1989.
Starting at 34:00 they start a song, particularly at 34:40 it really gets going. Eventually it becomes BB King’s How Blue Can You Get, but what is it before that? I vaguely recognize the tune but I am not sure.
