Funkadelic

From the Parliaments to Funkadelic

George Clinton formed the group that became Funkadelic in 1964 as the unnamed backing section for the Parliaments, his doo wop vocal group. In 1967 he recruited bassist Billy Bass Nelson and guitarist Eddie Hazel, then added guitarist Tawl Ross and drummer Tiki Fulwood. Nelson coined the name Funkadelic after the band moved to Detroit, and by 1968, because of a dispute with Revilot, the label that owned the Parliaments' name, the ensemble was playing under it. That year it signed to Westbound Records. Its music turned from soul and doo wop toward a harder, guitar-driven mix of psychedelic rock, soul and funk, with Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, the MC5 and Vanilla Fudge as inspirations. The band's first live television appearance was on Say Brother on 7 October 1969.

The Westbound albums

The first three albums arrived within two years. Funkadelic (1970) came out on Westbound with Clinton producing, and Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow followed on 20 July 1970 after Clinton said he wanted to see whether the band could cut a whole record while tripping on acid. Maggot Brain (1971) was made at United Sound Systems in Detroit, and its ten-minute title track, Maggot Brain, is largely an improvised Hazel solo. It was the last record by the original line-up. Fulwood was fired, Ross did not play with the band again, and Nelson quit over money, leaving only Clinton, Hazel and Bernie Worrell.

The group rebuilt. Bootsy and Catfish Collins, recruited from James Brown's backing band in 1972, replaced Nelson and Hazel, and the double album America Eats Its Young came out that year. Cosmic Slop (1973) added the singer and guitarist Garry Shider and was the first record with Pedro Bell's artwork. Hazel, after a spell away, returned for Standing on the Verge of Getting It On in 1974, an album he co-wrote in full, with most credits in the name of his mother Grace Cook.

P-Funk and the Warner years

In 1974 Clinton revived Parliament on Casablanca Records. The two groups shared most of their personnel and toured together as Parliament-Funkadelic, or P-Funk, with Funkadelic as the freer, guitar-based half. Let's Take It to the Stage (1975) nearly cracked the R&B top ten. That year the teenage guitarist Michael Hampton replaced Hazel as lead guitarist, and in 1976 the band left Westbound for Warner Bros.

One Nation Under a Groove (1978) added the keyboardist Walter Morrison, formerly of the Ohio Players, and is the band's most commercially successful album. It reached number 1 on the R&B albums chart and number 16 on the Billboard 200, and was certified platinum. Its title song, One Nation Under a Groove, spent six weeks at number 1 on the soul chart and reached number nine in Britain. Uncle Jam Wants You (1979) brought the fifteen-minute (Not Just) Knee Deep, and The Electric Spanking of War Babies (1981), cut from a planned double album under pressure from Warner, was the last official Funkadelic record.

After the split

In the early 1980s, facing legal difficulties over the many names and groups involved and a shake-up at Parliament's label, Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as recording and touring entities, though many of the musicians in later versions of the two groups remained employed by Clinton. By Way of the Drum, recorded in the mid-1980s, was rejected by its label and only appeared in America as a 2007 reissue. Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, and a documentary, Parliament-Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove, aired on PBS in 2005.

Hip-hop made heavy use of the catalogue. Dr. Dre has pointed to Funkadelic's sound as a major influence on his G-funk, and (Not Just) Knee Deep was sampled on The Chronic, Doggystyle and De La Soul's Me Myself and I. In its 2020 list Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain at number 136 and One Nation Under a Groove at number 360.