(Above) Funkadelic freaky, 1970. Bernie Worrell 3rd from Left
(Above) Funkadelic Superfreaky, late 70s. Bernie Worrell, left in top hat
Listen/Download – Funkadelic – I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You Baby Pt1 MP3
Listen/Download – Funkadelic – I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You Baby Pt2 (Inst) MP3
Listen/Download – Funkadelic – Not Just Knee Deep Pt1 (45 Edit) MP3
Greetings all.
To start things off, the winner of the drawing for the new M-Tet 45 is Joseph Karp! I will harvest a mailer and get that into the post, post haste.
Also, since the end of the week is breathing its hot, Frankenstein breath down the back of our neck, I will remind you that each and every Friday the Funky16Corners Radio Show podcast drops with the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, in iTunes (subscribe, s’il vous plait), TuneIn, Mixcloud and right here (just click on the Radio Show tab in the header).
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This year, just about half gone, has seen the grim reaper practicing deforestation, with musical redwoods tumbling at an astonishing rate.
Even though it’s clear we’re dealing with people who are by any measure ‘elderly’, having been in their prime 40, 50 or 60 years ago, it doesn’t make it any less painful.
When you talk to record collectors, musical historians and musicians, it’s clear that these losses are felt more deeply than simple fandom. We see these people as threads running through the fabric of the music we love the most, and when they die, it’s like watching it all unravel.
The loss of Bernie Worrell this past week was a heavy one. He’d been fighting cancer since the beginning of the year and even though we knew it was coming, his death was hard to take.
I probably first knew his name via his 1980s work with the Talking Heads, but when I finally discovered Funkadelic – through a series of poorly mastered yet still mindblowing CDs of their Westbound work – my mind was blown.
It was as if someone had taken my favorite foods and combined them in a new way that thrilled the palate.
Funkadelic – especially on their first three albums – sounded like the Whitfield-era Temps, Jimi Hendrix and any number of (generally) white Fillmore bands had been fused together.
Their music was psychedelic, funky, heavy and soulful, and for a while, it was all I listened to. I was making tapes to pass out to friends and there were always Funkadelic CDs sliding around on the seats (and floor) of my car.
A few years on, I began to take all the facets of the P-Funk galaxy (from the Revilot Parliaments on up) and line them up, studying their evolution and vast stylistic spread, and just marveling at the mountain of music they made over the years.
Bernie Worrell was there, manning the keyboard chair, from 1970 until the group first stopped touring in the 80s, and then in and out as the massive musical circus rolled on. He worked as a sideman, fronted his own bands, and never stopped spreading the gospel of funk until he wasn’t physically able to continue.
The two records I bring you today bracket Worrell’s time inside the Clinton organization, having been released just after the beginning, in 1970, and right near the end in 1979. The difference between the two 45s, and the two sounds is stunning.
Worrell, who was born not far from Funky16Corners central, up in Long Branch, NJ, was a Julliard graduate who did some time as the keyboardist in Chubby and the Turnpikes (later to morph into Tavares) before signing on with Funkadelic.
The 1970 45 release of ‘I Want To Know If It’s Good To You’ (originally released on ‘Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow’ and split into two parts here) is heavy slice of hard, spacey funk rock, with walls of psychedelic guitar, and Worrell’s keyboards (clavinet/electric piano) dancing in the spaces between the power chords.
Early Funkadelic is still one of the truly great, and unjustly neglected bands of the late 60s and early 70s. It might be fair to say that they evolved so much over the course of the next decade that they were eventually playing to, and being appreciated by an entirely different constituency than was there when they started.
As was the case through the 1970s, although they were a steady presence on the R&B charts, Funkadelic/P-Funk/Parliament were far too interesting and diverse to do much other than flirt with the Pop audience. They were drastically ahead of their time, creating party music that was stylistically deep and complex, with touches of funk, soul, jazz and rock, delivered to the public through a gigantic, ever fluctuating technicolor explosion. They were unfailingly innovative, mapping the way for everyone in their wake, and generating much of the DNA of hip hop.
When Funkadelic released ‘Not Just Knee Deep’ in 1979 it would be their second (and last) R&B Number One in two years (preceded by almost exactly a year by ‘One Nation Under a Groove’) and even in it’s 45 edit (less than ten minutes all told of it’s original 15:23 length on ‘Uncle Jam Wants You’) it was still a guaranteed party starter.
By that point in the timeline, Worrell had brought all manner of synthesizers into his arsenal, and the electronic keyboards became a cornerstone of the P-Funk sound (and an influence on upcoming bands like Zapp). Slap on your headphones and listen to ‘Not Just Knee Deep’ closely, as the synths and electric/acoustic pianos wind in and out of each other, providing almost as much rhythmic punch as the drums.
The song filled dance floors in 1979 and then went on through the 80s and 90s to be sample dozens of times, but most memorably by De La Soul on ‘Me Myself and I’.
As I mentioned earlier, Worrell’s post P-Funk career was always forward thinking and innovative, working with the Talking Heads, Bill Laswell/Material, Fela, Black Uhuru, Manu Dibango, Public Image Ltd, Golden Palominos, as well as pretty much all the artists in the P-Funk orbit.
Bernie Worrell was active musically until almost the very end.
He was a master, and he will be missed.
See you all on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.
PS Head over to Iron Leg too.
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