George Brown, a founding member and drummer of the group Kool & the Gang who played on funk, disco and pop hits that were featured prominently in films and sampled multiple times, died Thursday in Long Beach, California. He was 74 years old.
His death in a hospital was confirmed in a statement from the band’s publicist, who said the cause was cancer. Mr Brown had said publicly that he had lung cancer.
Mr. Brown, known as Funky, was instrumental in several of the band’s biggest hits, including “Ladies Night,” “Jungle Boogie” and the party anthem “Celebration.”
In an interview with NPR in July, he described Kool & the Gang as “the sound of happiness.”
In 1964, Mr. Brown joined forces with Ricky Westfield and brothers Ronald Khalis Bell and Robert “Kool” Bell, as well as other friends – Spike Mickens, Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas and Charles Smith – to form a band would combine jazz, funk, disco and R&B and create some of the most memorable pop songs of their time.
Formed in Jersey City, New Jersey, the band initially played jazz while the members attended Lincoln High School. The band performed under several names, including the Jazziacs, but eventually settled on Kool & the Gang in the late 1960s.
One of the band’s early names was Kool and the Flames, but the group changed the name Flames to The Gang to avoid confusion with James Brown’s group, the Famous Flames.
George Brown was born on January 15, 1949. His father, George Melvin Brown Sr., worked in the coal industry while his mother, Eleanor White Brown, was a maid in Fort Lee, New Jersey and also worked as a keyhole operator.
Both made music an integral part of Mr. Brown’s upbringing, Mr. Brown recalled in his memoir, “Too Hot: Kool & the Gang & Me,” published this year.
Mr. Brown, who took up drumming from a young age, wrote that he saved a newspaper delivery trip to buy his first drum kit.
In a 2015 interview with Red Bull Music Academy, Mr. Brown described using butter knives as drumsticks when he first started playing.
“Then I went to a music store on Newark Avenue in Jersey City and took a $3 lesson from a gentleman who used to play with the Shirelles. He said, ‘Hey man, you’re a natural!'” Mr. Brown recalls. “So he gave me the book ‘Buddy Rich’s 16 Essential Snare Drum Rudiments.’ I took one more lesson and never went back.”
The band was signed to De-Lite Records in 1969 by producer Gene Redd.
The members were in New York in an early recording session for their debut instrumental album, “Kool and the Gang,” when Mr. Redd encouraged Mr. Brown and Ronald Bell to just “do something.” This led to a loose recording session that produced songs like “Raw Hamburger” and album opener “Kool & the Gang.”
“It just flowed. And we just groove,” Brown said in an interview with The New York Times last year.
The sound continued into the 1970s when the band became famous and added singer JT Taylor.
Songs like “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging,” and “Funky Stuff” became staples on the Billboard charts. “Celebration” – with its cheerful refrain “Celebrate good times, come on!” – has made it to the top.
The group released dozens of albums, toured worldwide and appeared on the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978.
The group’s songs appeared frequently on film and television soundtracks, including 1994’s “Pulp Fiction.”
In 2015 the band was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mr. Brown was a producer on an album the band released this year called “People Just Want to Have Fun” in advance of the group’s 60th anniversary.
Kool & the Gang were hugely influential, particularly in hip-hop.
According to the website WhoSampled, the band has sampled nearly 2,000 songs, one of the most of all time. The band’s song “Summer Madness” features 249 samples from artists such as Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige.
Ronald Khalis Bell, a singer, songwriter and saxophonist with the band, died in 2020. Mr. Thomas, who played saxophone, died in 2021.
Mr. Brown is survived by his wife Hanh Brown and five children: Dorian Melvin Brown, Jorge Lewis Brown, Gregory Brown, Jordan Xuan Clarence Brown and Aaron Tien Joseph Brown.
Three years ago, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to an interview with Los Angeles television station KCAL. After surgery and chemotherapy, Mr. Brown recovered and returned to touring in 2022. But this year the cancer returned.
“I had no intention of playing in a band that was known around the world, but I welcomed it when the time came,” Mr. Brown wrote in his book. “I didn’t know where music would take me, but I knew that if I stayed focused and persistent, it would happen the way God intended. And it did.”