In a career spanning seven decades, New Jersey’s denizens of funk and disco, Kool & the Gang, notched up eight Top 40 albums and 20 Top 40 singles on the US pop charts, alongside a swarm of hits on the US R&B chart. Their best known songs included Ladies Night, Jungle Boogie, Summer Madness, Too Hot, Cherish and, above all, their go-everywhere signature tune, Celebration. All of these were co-written by their drummer, George “Funky” Brown, who has died aged 74 after suffering from lung cancer.
He was one of the band’s founders, and was still behind the drum kit for their most recent album earlier this year, People Just Wanna Have Fun, which he also produced while being one of the main songwriters. In his memoir, Too Hot: Kool & the Gang & Me (2023), Brown wrote: “I didn’t know where the music would lead me, but I knew that if I remained focused and persevered, it would happen as God had intended. And it did.”
