The spirit of the Godfather of Go-Go spread across the National Mall on July 3 with each bass riff and brass blast of the Chuck Brown Band. After a drizzly evening of varied traditional music in the Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert, the crowd rushed the stage at the first mention of Washington, D.C.’s own Chuck Brown.

Funk singer and guitarist Brown passed away in 2012, but his legacy lives on through his band, which includes his daughter Takesa “KK” Donelson and his son Wiley Brown, as well as many other musicians he inspired over the years. They closed their high-energy set with “Bustin’ Loose,” a hit song first released by Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers on an LP of the same name in 1979.

Videographers: David Barnes, Caleb Hamilton, Helen Lehrer, W.N. McNair, Shaun Weber, John Wetmore
Audio recordist: David Walker
Editor: W.N. McNair

[Catalog No. CFV10831; Copyright 2016, Smithsonian Institution]

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