Go-Go: continuous, complex, heavy rhythm arrangements focused through two thematic patterns performed on multiple congas, timbale and roto-toms, interspersed with tambourine and cowbell parts, driven by heavy-footed drumming and punctuated by crowd "call-and-response" as in many African-American church sermons.
By the early 1970s, Chuck Brown, a veteran of the DC club scene, playing dozens of Top 40 covers a night to crowds that were slow to get on their feet. Theyd come in all dressed nice and sit down at their tables and then not get up til they were drunk, he recalls. It didnt help that the songs lasted only two or three minutes each; any dance floor momentum stopped dead while the band geared up for the next tune. So Brown hit on the idea of using a running percussion beat to tie all the songs together, making a set sound like a medley of individual numbers starting and stopping over a pounding, nonstop rhythm. We started breaking the tunes down and talking to people at the same time, and rhyming with them, and then neckties would come off and the floors would get packed right away. Thus the "pocket" was born.
Brown called this new music Go-Go for two reasons. It was the era of go-go clubs and go-go girls, but there was no go-go music. The other reason: Once the energy got going on the floor, the people kept going and going. After a few more years of doing covers, Brown started writing his own songs. His first hit was Bustin Loose, recorded and released in the late 70s. Younger bands were already starting to pop up all over the city. Trouble Funk patterned themselves after Parliament/Funkadelic; Experience Unlimited played top 40 and rock. Chuck took another young band under his wing known as the Young Dynamos. When Chuck put them on, they changed their name to "Rare Essence" With guidance; Rare Essence quickly became the hottest young band in town. Although not quite as polished as E.U. and Trouble Funk, they captured the crowd with a pure Go-Go sound.
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