The funk band Lettuce, which performs Thursday, May 22, at Globe Iron in Cleveland, has been together since together for more than three decades at this point, and guitarist Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff ...

The foundations of funk were laid down in the mid-1960s, when James Brown began to emphasize the first beat of each measure in his stage-tested and frenzy-inducing R&B songs. Before the decade’s end, ...