Saturday Conversation: Kool And The Gang’s George Brown On Celebrating Life

Forbes Lifestyle Arts Saturday Conversation: Kool And The Gang’s George Brown On Celebrating Life Steve Baltin Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about music and the business of music. Following Jul 8, 2023, 02:12pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Robert “Kool” Bell and George Brown of Kool And The Gang, who have a new album out this Friday.

Photo courtesy of KTFA For 59 years now, Kool And The Gang have been making fans smile and dance to songs like “Celebration,” “Get Down On It,” “Ladies Night” and “Too Hot. ” The New Jersey-born band have transcended their R&B and funk roots to become one of the world’s truly great party groups, a musical jubilee that embodies joy and good times. As founding member George Brown tells me, the band’s latest work, the aptly named People Just Wanna Have Fun (out this Friday, July 14, where the band will be playing the first of two nights at the iconic Hollywood Bowl), is a strong continuation of their decades-long philosophy of bringing people together for fun.

And in these tumultuous times following the COVID lockdown, political discourse and general global upheaval the need for a celebration is greater than ever, something Brow very much understands. I spoke with Brown, who has a memoir — Too Hot: Kool & The Gang & Me — out this Tuesday, July 11, about the music that shaped his life, where the band’s consistent drive for a good time comes from, the new album and much more. Steve Baltin: You produced this record in the San Fernando Valley.

Do people just want to have fun in the Valley too? George Brown: People just want to have fun everywhere. Baltin: It’s such a wonderful title. And I love the single, “Let’s Party.

” I’ve talked about this with a great many artists. It’s been a very tumultuous time. It does feel like though, in a post-lockdown world, people really do want to get together and celebrate and party.

Are you finding that, and do you feel like this music is sort of reflective of people wanting to celebrate? MORE FOR YOU Airbus Extra-Long-Range A321XLR Wows Paris Airshow Crowds Your Guide To Shopping Amazon Prime Day 2023 And The Best Early Deals The 33 Best Early Prime Day Deals To Shop In 2023 Brown: I’m finding that even when you watch the TV commercials they are funnier than ever. And you see more of blended people, meaning people of different ethnicity groups, races, blended families and interracial families. And that just goes to show, to me, is that we’re growing and realizing that we’re all connected and that people want to get out and explore the lighter side of life.

That’s why when summer comes around, I don’t care where you are in the world, unless there’s some tumultuous situation going on, people head for the beach and get their popcorn, hot dogs, cotton candy, everything, and just sit down there on the beach. People chill. And that’s a mode of having fun.

And you see it at every concert or every football game, basketball game, rugby game, rugby or soccer, hockey, whatever, curling. [chuckle] People are there to have fun and forget about the taxes, or the medical problems or, domestic problems or whatever. People are out to release themselves and to cure themselves of whatever ill they have.

And that’s what music is all about. And that’s where we’re coming from with this album, medicine. Baltin: You guys have done this for 40, 50 years.

You go back to songs like “Celebrate” and “Get Down on It. ” These are some of the greatest party anthems of all time. But do you feel like it’s almost more important now to provide that soundtrack for people to be able to have fun in the summer of 2023? Brown: We think, and we always have, that it’s important for people to have fun, period.

It’s important for people to be at a place, do things at a place that propagates you releasing your stress and tensions. That’s why people go to the gym. But a lot of time people go to the gym to be with other people, to build their bodies.

Of course, just having fun, they’re looking with this muscle group, that muscle group, talking with people. It’s a social gathering. House parties, social gatherings, the old carnival, the fairs, all of that is to get people out, to gather, to release tensions.

And we’ve always thought about that on our albums, to not preach and reflect the detriments that are going on in the world, like the Ukraine problem, and the COVID, and Iran and the women who are taking off their head scarfs, women should be free to do what they have so choose as long as it doesn’t hurt them or anybody else, that’s where I come from. Or the LGBTQ community. A person should be free to do what he/she/they/them choose.

You want to marry somebody robots, by all means, go ahead, it’s fine. You’re not hurting that person. [chuckle].

There’s love there. That’s fun in itself, that’s love. When people are talking about just sex and they say, “Hey, let’s have some fun as adults.

” And you know what they’re talking about. You got it? “Let’s have some fun. ” All of that.

And we’ve always written like that. Like you take the song, “Get Down on It. ” It sounds salacious.

Then when you really listen to the music it’s telling you you’re the captain of your own ship, go out and do what you need to do to get where you want to go. “Get down on it. How’re you gonna do it if you really don’t wanna dance?” The dance of life.

The dance that you and I, and every human being on this planet does too. The dance of survival, to go out and do. And there’s a joy within that itself because everybody suffers the slings and arrows here on earth, that’s part of the plan.

That’s part of the growth. But the other part is to enjoy. And with Kool & The Gang, with Ronald Bell, and Spike Mickens, and Robert Bell, Dennis Thomas, and Rick Westfield, and Woody Sparrows, Spike, Charles Smith, we’ve always chosen that road.

Taking a high road of saying and doing things that make people happy. “The Sea of Tranquility,” that was one of the tracks on our first album. And that’s happiness.

Look at the progress we have made as men. We’re on the moon. That’s happiness.

It’s not like somebody running through dropping bombs on keys, you know what I mean? Fighting a war, for what? Who wants to fight a war, to take land? It’s like the most asinine thing ever. We’re not writing about that. ‘Cause we don’t think that way.

We think of the positive and be positive. Baltin: For you as a fan, was there one song early on from another artist that became your party song, and it influenced you musically because that was the song for you that always made you have a good time? Brown: Oh, man. There are so many songs by so many different artists, and so many genres.

There’s so many. It could be from James Taylor, or Stephen Stills, or Stevie Wonder, or Marvin Gaye, or Journey, or The Rolling Stones. There’s The Beatles, I just can’t.

There are just so many. It could be by Miles [Davis] or John Coltrane. It’s all that.

James Moody, Moody’s musical, Sergei Rachmaninoff. There’s not just that one. There’s so many that I love personally, that I go, “Oh, yeah.

Love that. ” Baltin: Let’s come onto the new album for a second, People Just Wanna Have Fun . Are there a couple of the songs that you are particularly excited to take out on the road this summer and see how people respond to them? Brown: All of them.

I know the “99 Miles to JC” is pretty much in a genre of “Summer Madness. ” But we’re looking forward to do those type of venues too, where people are more seated down, but they’re there to have fun. Like when we did the Montreux Jazz Festival and OC Jazz Festival, those type venues where people have come to listen to that idiom.

So what we tried to do was encompass that in the album, everything — funk, dance, disco, pop, jazz, we tried to put that in this album. And of course, the musicality, the musicianship and the melodies, the harmonies, we try to infuse all that. And the vocals, how the vocals have changed.

And you have some of the soulful vocals, and the poppy vocals, and the jazz type of harmonic harmonies. We tried to incorporate all that in this album to show who we were. And at the same time, we were having fun doing it.

And it has always been that way. Just taking a blank canvas and just start painting. And we write what we love and we’re not gonna talk about the lives that we had, that were so hard growing up in Jersey City.

“99 miles to JC” is like,”I can’t wait. ” Going home, seeing your parents and your grandmother’s got the food right. Stuff, that’s happy.

Can’t wait to get home off the road, 99 miles away. So all of that, that’s where we come from. We’re not talking about where we come from and the dire need for sustenance money, we’re talking about where we’re going.

Always up. Like the Beatles used to say, “Where we’re going, to the top. To to The Toppermost of The Poppermost.

” And we always thought that way ourselves. Follow me on Twitter . Steve Baltin Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.