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Friday, October 30, 2026Oct 30

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Kennedy: This funk fan gets down to ‘Uptown’

photo Mark Kennedy

My family thinks I’m crazy — and they might be right.

After all, how many middle-age white guys on Signal Mountain do you think are stone-cold, funk music fans? I might be a club of one.

When I was a kid, I was something of a musical misfit. While all my friends in the 1970s were rocking out to Aerosmith and Peter Frampton, I was grooving to Parliment-Funkadelic, Tower of Power and Earth, Wind and Fire. (Think, Howdy Doody goes to the ‘hood.)

Here’s the thing: Funk music is like chicken pox, once it gets in your bloodstream it never leaves. Just like one day you might break out with shingles, I might one day spontaneously bust a move — which, at my age, carries the risk of being misdiagnosed as a seizure.

My most recent dance trigger has been the insanely popular song “Uptown Funk,” a modern classic featuring Bruno Mars, which some young people seem to think is a completely original, 21st century musical creation.