Funky Friday – Episode 43: Jive Turkey

🔗 Quick Links:

🎧 Listen live on KDOG  9am Pacific Time→ Here

🎧 Listen live on KCSM HD2 9pm Pacific Time→ Here (On mobile scroll down to the KCSM HD2 player)

📆 Add to Calendar — Funky Friday (Weekly):

• 9AM KDOG 

Add to Google Calendar

• 9PM KCSM HD2 

Add to Google Calendar

🎶 Catch the Replay → Here

📖 Full Episode Recaps + Setlists → Here 

🎟 RSVP to Episodes → Here

📂 Renegade Radio Site → Here

Episode Teaser

Airdate: 11.28.25 - 9am Pacific Time on KDOG & 9pm Pacific Time on KCSM HD2

Happy Funky Friday, Renegades of Funk!

For Episode 43, we’re carving into a Funksgiving feast — one smooth-talking Tom Turkey at the head of the table, rocking a fedora, pouring the wine, and still somehow having no idea he’s the entrée.

This week’s set is warm, playful, full of family-energy, deep grooves, disco shimmer, and that unmistakable “post-meal funk haze” only Thanksgiving can deliver. No leftovers. No algorithm. Just groove, gratitude, and golden-brown funk straight from Signal Fire Studio.

🦃 Setlist + Renegade Notes

Act I — The Warm-Up: The House Smells Amazing

King Floyd – “Groove Me” (1971)

Personnel: King Floyd – vocals | Wardell Quezergue – arrangement | Malaco Studio Band – rhythm section

Renegade Note: Southern soul sliding into early funk — the perfect opener for a holiday kitchen. Warm, simple, hypnotic. A groove that simmers like gravy.

Charles Wright – “Express Yourself” (1970)

Personnel: Charles Wright – vocals/guitar | The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band

Renegade Note: Thanksgiving rule # 1 : be yourself and pass the rolls. Wright’s classic makes every table feel like a block party.

The Meters – “Chicken Strut” (1970)

Personnel: Art Neville – keys | Leo Nocentelli – guitar | George Porter Jr. – bass | Zigaboo Modeliste – drums

Renegade Note: No bird jokes needed… the Meters always hit fowl-level funk. One of the most New Orleans grooves ever pressed to wax.

Act II — The Meal Hits the Table

Friends of Distinction – “Grazing in the Grass” (1969)

Personnel: Harry Elston – vocals | Jessica Cleaves – vocals | Barbara Jean Love – vocals | Floyd Butler – vocals. Likely Wrecking Crew session players (uncredited): Hal Blaine – drums | Carol Kaye – bass | Larry Knechtel – keys | Al Casey / Bill Pittman – guitar

Renegade Note: Bright, crisp, fresh. The salad course of funk. Horns that sparkle like Thanksgiving afternoon sunlight.

Commodores – “Machine Gun” (1974)

Personnel: Milan Williams – clavinet/keys (composer) | Lionel Richie – alto sax & keyboards Thomas McClary – guitar | Ron LaPread – bass | Walter Orange – drums

Renegade Note:A full instrumental sprint — sharp, tight, firing on all cylinders. A palate cleanser before things get heavy.

L.T.D. – “Back in Love Again” (1977)

Personnel: Jeffrey Osborne – vocals | Billy Osborne – keys/vocals | Jimmie Davis – keys. Henry Davis – bass | Johnny McGhee – guitar,.

Horn section: Abraham “Onion” Miller – trumpet | Toby Wynn – sax | Jake Riley – trombone | Paul Klimek – horns

Renegade Note: Smooth, joyful, and irresistibly warm. The moment your favorite dish hits the table and everyone goes, “Oh hell yes.”

B.T. Express – “Do It (‘Til You’re Satisfied)” (1974)

Personnel: Bill Risbrook – sax | Carlos Ward – sax/flute | Rick Thompson – trumpet | Dennis Rowe – percussion | Terrell Wood – bass | Richard Thompson – guitar | Louis Risbrook – vocals | Barbara Joyce – vocals | Sammy Lowe – arranger

Renegade Note:A slow-burn disco-funk stretch that feels like that second plate you definitely didn’t need… but absolutely took.

Act III — Funksgiving Chaos (The Uncle Who

Won’t Sit Down)

Mass Production – “Firecracker” (1979)

Personnel: Tyrone Williams & Tiny Kelly – vocals | LeCoy Bryant – keyboards | Michael Johnson – drums | Kevin Douglas – bass | Larry Marshall – guitar | Gregory McCoy – sax (horn arrangements) | James Drumgole – trumpet | Rodney Phelps – trombone

Renegade Note: Outrageous, silly, funky, explosive. The moment the dinner table devolves into laughter, side-eye, and questionable stories.

Walter Murphy – “A Fifth of Beethoven” (1976)

Renegade Note:Disco goes symphonic. Thanksgiving goes off the rails. The bird isn’t the only thing getting roasted.

Act IV — Family, Afterglow & Late-Night Groove

Sly & The Family Stone – “Family Affair” (1971)

Personnel: Sly Stone – vocals/keys/drum programming | Rose Stone – vocals | Billy Preston – electric piano | Bobby Womack – guitar (uncredited)

Renegade Note:A warm, hazy, post-meal truth: family is messy, beautiful, complicated, and a groove all its own.

Sister Sledge – “We Are Family” (1979)

Personnel: Kathy, Joni & Debbie Sledge – vocalsRenegade Note:You literally cannot get more Thanksgiving-coded than this. A perfect celebration of the people who set your table — chosen or blood.

Jimmy Cliff – “Treat the Youths Right” (1982)

Personnel: Jimmy Cliff – vocals | Earl “Chinna” Smith – guitar | Lloyd Parks – bass | Sly Dunbar – drums | Robbie Shakespeare – additional bass & production | Ansel Collins – keyboards | Sticky Thompson – percussion | Rita Marley & Judy Mowatt – background vocals (I-Threes session regulars, uncredited but consistent across Cliff sessions of the era)

Renegade Note: Sunny, upbeat, and full of heart — a reggae-soul groove with just enough funk on the edges to land beautifully in a Funksgiving set. Warm bass, bright guitars, and Cliff’s effortless positivity create a perfect “family glow” moment. A fitting tribute on the week of his passing.

Lakeside – “Fantastic Voyage” (1980)

Personnel: Mark Adam Wood Jr. – vocals | Otis Stokes – bass/vocals | Stephen Shockley – guitar | Thomas Shelby – keys/vocals | Marvin Craig – bass | Fred Alexander Jr. – drums | Charles Carter – sax | Fred Jenkins – trumpet

Renegade Note: Energy rising again — the whole house vibing, moving, laughing, digesting. The come-together moment.

KC & The Sunshine Band – “Get Down Tonight” (1975)

Personnel: Harry Wayne Casey – vocals/keys | Richard Finch – bass/drums | Jerome Smith – guitar | Oliver Brown – percussion | Robert Johnson – congas | Whit Sidener – sax | Ken Faulk – trumpet | Vinnie Tanno – trumpet | Beverly Champion & Margie Clark – backing vocals

Renegade Note: A perfect closer — a disco-funk sendoff that turns the kitchen into a dance floor. Not a turkey in sight.

🦃 Why JIVE TURKEY?

Because Thanksgiving isn’t just a meal — it’s a vibe.A mix of joy, chaos, warmth, family, dysfunction, gratitude, and groove.

Jive Turkey is the funhouse-mirror version of the holiday:a slick-talking bird in a fedora presiding over the table while the funk does all the carving.

This episode celebrates:

• family in all its glorious mess

• food as a communal ritual

• and funk as the universal language that keeps everyone at the table

Funk is feast.Funk is family.Funk is gratitude with a side of “get down.”

🔗 Quick Links:

🎧 Listen live on KDOG  9am Pacific Time→ Here

🎧 Listen live on KCSM HD2 9pm Pacific Time→ Here (On mobile scroll down to the KCSM HD2 player)

📆 Add to Calendar — Funky Friday (Weekly):

• 9AM KDOG 

Add to Google Calendar

• 9PM KCSM HD2 

Add to Google Calendar

🎶 Catch the Replay → Here

📖 Full Episode Recaps + Setlists → Here 

🎟 RSVP to Episode → Here

📂 Renegade Radio Site → Here

🍗Funk Facts🍗

---

🎷 “Machine Gun” – The Commodores (1974)

Before Lionel Richie was a global ballad heavyweight, he was a sax player and keyboardist — and Machine Gun is one of the purest snapshots of his early funk DNA. It’s a full-band instrumental, but Lionel is right in the engine room blowing alto sax and working the keys beside composer Milan Williams. A forgotten detail: President Nixon once used Machine Gun as his walk-on music at a White House dinner.

🎶 “We Are Family” – Sister Sledge (1979)

Written in a single night by Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards after Atlantic Records asked them, “Got anything for the Sledge Sisters?” They delivered a generational anthem — and a Funksgiving essential.

🥁 “Chicken Strut” – The Meters (1970)

Zigaboo Modeliste’s drumming here is considered one of the cleanest examples of New Orleans second-line funk. The cluck sounds? 100% Art Neville clowning around on the mic.

🎺 “Grazing in the Grass” – Friends of Distinction (1969)

Powered in the background by the Wrecking Crew — Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Larry Knechtel — the same musicians behind the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, and countless TV themes.