Con Funk Shun Louis A. McCall Sr. and singer/guitarist Michael Cooper formed Con Funk Shun as high school students in
Vallejo, California. Adding members Karl A. Fuller, Paul A. Harrell, Cedric A. Martin,
Felton C. Pilate and Danny A. Thomas, the band started out as a backing group for the
Soul Children under the name Project Soul. They began working with
Stax Records staff songwriters, and while
recording at Audio Dimensions, a sound studio in
Memphis, Tennessee, producer Ted Sturges both named the group (after an
instrumental recording by
The Nite-Liters) and produced their first album,
Organized Con Funk Shun. In 1976, Con Funk Shun signed to
Mercury Records, releasing eleven albums over a span of ten years. The group's 1977 album,
Secrets, was certified
gold in the U.S., as were
Loveshine (1978),
Candy (1979), and
Spirit of Love (1980). They scored a string of
top ten hits on the
Billboard black singles
chart, including "Ffun" (#1 in 1977), "Shake and Dance with Me" (#5 in 1978), "Chase Me" (#4 in 1979), "Got to Be Enough" (#8 in 1980) and "Too Tight" (#8 in 1981). Tensions from within the group built over the 1980s, and the group's final album,
Burning Love, was recorded without songwriter and vocalist
Felton Pilate, who had left Con Funk Shun following a physical altercation involving McCall. In addition to doing radio promotion for EQartel's Atlanta-based street team, the Rhyme Scene Unit, McCall also became a successful event planner, most notably producing a celebrity benefit for actor/activist
Danny Glover at
The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in January 1993. ==Death and aftermath==