The group was formed in Minneapolis by Steven Greenberg, who wrote and produced all of the group’s music, and who also played several instruments. The lead singer was Cynthia Johnson, and the rest of the group consisted of a changing group of session musicians. One being guitarist David Rivkin AKA David Z. who later on produced, mixed and wrote for others and worked closely with Prince. They achieved some popularity during the end of the disco era at the late 70s and early 80s and had one international pop hit. “Funkytown” spent four weeks at number one on both the Hot 100 and on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts in the United States and was awarded a platinum record. It reached number two in the United Kingdom and was a hit throughout the world. Their further singles failed to match their initial success (their only other Hot 100 entry was “Rock It”, which peaked at #64), however they had more dance hits throughout the 1980s, including the Ace cover How Long in 1981, which reached #4 on the U.S. dance chart. The group ceased recording in the mid 1980s, by than Cynthia Johnson had already left the group. A rock version of “Funkytown” was covered by the Australia group Pseudo Echo in 1987 on their album Love An Adventure and reached the top of the charts there. “Funkytown” is one of the songs of the Shrek 2 movie soundtrack. The song “Funkytown” has had popular recognition again recently due to a mash-up of it with Soulwax’s dance track NY Excuse appearing on the Soulwax remix album Nite Versions. The track is titled NY Lipps. Steven Greenberg’s son Neil has been on MTV’s Made performing as a rapper as ‘The Blizzard’. In that episode Greenberg made several appearances as well. http://www.funkytown.com |
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