When George Porter, Jr. was a child, he wanted to become a Catholic priest. But an uncomfortably silent church retreat and an encounter with neighborhood blues musicians helped Porter find his musical calling.
He turned to funk and never looked back.
As the bass player for The Meters, Porter helped create a body of music in the 1960s and 70s that still resonates as some of the funkiest grooves ever recorded.
So what’s the secret to funk?
“You’ve got to allow for space,” Porter tells Gwen. “There should never be a bass note on the backbeat. If the drummer is playing on 2 and 4, that is his backbeat… So (the bass and drum) would be, ‘Boom-Bop-Boom-Bop!’”