"Funky Broadway" was one of Wilson Pickett's two Top 10 hits on the US Hot 100 (the other was 1966's "Land Of 1,000 Dances"), though he routinely swept the R&B charts and scored at least some Top-40 hits on the UK charts as well. This song was written by Arlester "Dyke" Christian, of the group Dyke & the Blazers.
This song has the honor of being the first charting single to be published with the word "funk" in the title - it is one of the founding songs of the whole funk genre.
Notice how at the beginning of the song before the vocals kick in, you could almost swear you were listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival. There's definitely some common ground between CCR's style of swamp-rock blues and funk's origins in soul, gospel, jazz, and blues, but it's so hard to trace that it can't be pinned down. And yet we have examples like this, where Uncle Cosmo's ghost shows up to tease us with a couple of bars.
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