Retro Chicken

P-Funk, like all the great funk bands, started out as a doo-wop group. James Brown and the Temptations were also big doo-woppers, and I am sure Sly Stone could doo-wop if he had to. I don’t understand the connection.

Parliament (the “P” in P-Funk) morphed into the prototypical funkateers and Funkadelic (the “Funk”) emerged at some point as initially the more experimental, avant-garde side to the band releasing cool albums like Maggot Brain – including acoustic funk, Free Your Mind…, etc. (A lot of weird legal things happened throughout the early seventies – read this for the low down.)

By the seventies P-Funk (releasing albums both as Parliament and Funkadelic) were the preeminent funk hipsters (though my roommate in college insisted P-Funk was “disco” and wouldn’t listen to them – some people just don’t get it), boasting a line up of awesome funk-notables like Bootsy Collins*, Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, Eddie Hazel, the dude in the diaper, and obviously George Clinton.

NWA sampled P-Funk grooves (instead of James Brown like everyone else) and George Clinton produced Freaky Styley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ second album. They still tour (now as the P-Funk All Stars), play three hour plus sets, and are amazing.

George’s outfit is unusually conservative in the video clip.

*The hype about Bootsy (I don’t know if this story is completely true) is that he played bass for James Brown, left James to be a roadie for Sly Stone (I believe Larry Graham – the inventor of slap bass – was in Sly’s band at the time), and then finally joined P-Funk (along with his brother on guitar).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under P-funk, Funky Chicken.