The 1970s File Feature
Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe
B.T. Express and the Brooklyn Funk of "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe" B.T. Express emerged from Brooklyn, New York in the mid-1970s as one of the most dist…
01 The Story
B.T. Express and the Brooklyn Funk of "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe"
B.T. Express emerged from Brooklyn, New York in the mid-1970s as one of the most distinctive funk and disco acts in a city that was simultaneously developing the musical infrastructure that would reshape American popular music for decades. The group had made an immediate and emphatic commercial statement with their debut single "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)" in 1974, a track that reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and demonstrated that the Brooklyn funk scene had produced something with genuine national commercial reach. "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe," released in 1975 as a double A-side single, extended and complicated this initial success while revealing the range of musical approaches the group was capable of deploying within the broader funk and soul framework.
The group's formation drew on the talent pool of Brooklyn's working musician community. Louis Risbrook and Barbara Risbrook were among the founding members, alongside Michael Jones, Dennis Rowe, Richard Thompson, Carlos Ward, and Bill Risbrook, with later membership changes bringing in additional players. The ensemble approach that B.T. Express employed, with multiple vocalists and a full complement of rhythm section, brass, and keyboard players, reflected the influence of larger funk groups like Sly and the Family Stone and Earth, Wind and Fire rather than the smaller, more focused formations that characterized some other funk acts.
The production of "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe" reflected the skills of Jeff Lane, who had been central to the group's sound from the beginning. The double A-side format acknowledged commercial reality: both tracks had sufficient individual strength to justify promotion, and presenting them as co-equal sides of a single gave radio programmers two distinct but related options. The format also reflected the diversity of the group's musical approach, with each side offering something somewhat different while both remaining recognizably within the B.T. Express sonic signature.
"Give It What You Got" leaned into the harder, more percussive funk tradition, emphasizing the group's rhythmic attack and the kind of groove construction that had made "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)" an immediate dance floor phenomenon. "Peace Pipe" moved in a somewhat different direction, incorporating elements that reflected the eclectic musical interests that several group members had developed through their years as working musicians in Brooklyn's diverse musical environment. The contrast between the two sides gave the release a breadth that demonstrated the group's versatility even as it may have complicated the promotional story.
The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 9, 1975, debuting at number 84. It climbed consistently over subsequent weeks, reaching its peak position of number 31 during the week of November 8, 1975, after an 18-week chart journey. The 18-week chart presence was a remarkable achievement that reflected sustained commercial vitality rather than a brief spike of promotional momentum. Songs that remain on the Hot 100 for nearly five months have earned their position through ongoing audience engagement, not just initial curiosity, and the chart longevity of "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe" confirmed that B.T. Express had built a genuine and loyal following.
Simultaneously with its Hot 100 performance, the single performed strongly on the R&B and dance charts, where the group's core audience was concentrated. The year 1975 was a pivotal one in the development of disco as a commercial force, and B.T. Express occupied an interesting position in relation to that development. Their sound was rooted in the funk tradition but compatible with the emerging disco aesthetic in ways that made their music functional across the different settings in which dance music was being consumed. The transition from funk-focused listening to disco-oriented dancing was one that B.T. Express navigated with the pragmatism of experienced working musicians who understood that audience needs and commercial formats were legitimate artistic considerations rather than corruptions of purity.
Brooklyn's role in the development of disco and funk during this period has sometimes been underemphasized in historical accounts that have focused heavily on the Manhattan club scene as the primary location of these musical developments. B.T. Express represented the creative energy that the outer boroughs were contributing to the musical transformation of New York during the mid-1970s, a contribution that was commercially and artistically significant even if it has not always received commensurate historical attention.
02 Song Meaning
Energy, Community, and the Message of B.T. Express's "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe"
The double A-side "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe" presents two complementary but distinct aspects of the social philosophy embedded in mid-1970s funk and soul music. Taken together, the two sides articulate a worldview in which personal commitment and communal harmony are presented as naturally aligned values, each reinforcing and enabling the other. This pairing was not accidental but reflected the thematic coherence that distinguished the best funk recordings of the period from mere rhythmic product aimed purely at dance floor functionality.
"Give It What You Got" operates within the tradition of the motivational funk anthem, a form that had roots in James Brown's work and had been developed extensively through the early 1970s by artists who understood that the dance floor was also a space for the assertion of collective energy and collective identity. The imperative form of the title, addressing the listener directly and commanding maximum effort, draws the audience into a relationship of active participation rather than passive reception. The demand to give everything one has implies that holding back is a kind of self-betrayal, that the full engagement of one's capacities is not merely desirable but necessary for genuine experience.
The "Peace Pipe" side operates on different philosophical terrain. The peace pipe is a loaded cultural symbol, drawn from Native American ceremonial tradition but widely understood in the 1970s as an image of reconciliation, shared purpose, and the resolution of conflict through ritual acknowledgment of common humanity. Its use in this context carried both the weight of that ceremonial tradition and the specific resonances of a countercultural era in which symbols of peace and communal harmony had accumulated enormous political and personal significance through a decade of protest, conflict, and the ongoing desire for a different social order.
The juxtaposition of these two thematic streams within a single release reveals something essential about the social vision embedded in Brooklyn funk. The community B.T. Express addressed was one that had experienced significant pressure from economic hardship, urban disinvestment, and the social disruptions of the early 1970s. In this context, music that called simultaneously for personal commitment and communal peace was not merely entertainment but a form of social testimony, an assertion that the values of energy and harmony were available within the music itself as a model for broader application.
The 18-week chart run the double A-side achieved reflected an audience that found in these twin messages something worth returning to repeatedly. Dance music that carries genuine thematic content has a sustainability that purely formal groove music does not, because listeners connect with the ideas as well as the rhythms and continue to find meaning in the music beyond the initial excitement of discovery. B.T. Express had identified themes with genuine staying power and had expressed them through musical forms sufficiently compelling to sustain audience engagement over an extended period.
The group's position at the intersection of funk and emerging disco also shaped the meaning of this particular release. As the mid-1970s dance scene was diversifying and the commercial categories that would eventually separate "funk" from "disco" were beginning to solidify, B.T. Express occupied a genuinely transitional space in which both traditions were accessible and available. The two sides of "Give It What You Got/Peace Pipe" can be read as navigating this transition, one side more firmly rooted in the rhythmically direct funk tradition and the other reaching toward the more expansive, socially utopian aspirations that disco at its best was simultaneously articulating. The commercial success of the release confirmed that audiences found value in music that refused to settle prematurely into either category alone.
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