Make My Funk the P-Funk: Parliament-Funkadelic's Meteoric Rise in 1975 from Chocolate City to Mothership Connection
by Daniel Bedrosian
A big thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for
providing me with an advanced copy of Daniel Bedrosian’s fun and enlightening
new book Make My Funk the P-Funk: Parliament-Funkadelic’s Meteoric Rise in1975 from Chocolate City to Mothership Connection. While not necessarily a traditional
book on the band’s influence and formation, Bedrosian, who has been funkin’ it
up with Parliament-Funkadelic for the past 20 years, provides a brief history
of the band, as well as setting the historical context for the band’s evolution
from inhabiting Chocolate City to exploring outer space and other realms
with the Mothership Connection. Bedrosian also provides an overview of
the albums and the musicians who contributed to these albums, and brief biographies
for many of the varied members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Amazingly, Bedrosian
has also somehow catalogued the vast samples from P-Funk’s history. I think
this resource alone is well worth any hip-hop fan’s time and money. Parliament-Funkadelic’s
music has provided much of the samples and beats that fueled the early and
golden years of hip-hop, and if you don’t know, now you know. I loved seeing
which songs were sampled by which artists, and although there are websites that
are dedicated to this, it was still cool to find a print reference that also
includes biographies and a discography with notes on each of the songs. As a
result, this book is more like a reference book than any kind of narrative
biography of the band. It is highly informative, and with Bedrosian’s
experience and knowledge as a member of the band, he has unique access to other
members, providing some key details and information about the making of some of
the most iconic albums from a band that basically redefined R’n’B by cutting
out their own genre of Funk. It’s really cool to read.
Although P-Funk played an important part of my life in high
school, my first encounters with P-Funk were from George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog”.
I still remember being blown away by this video, featuring cartoons and a
video-game like setting, with such catchy and fun music and lyrics. I don’t
think that my early encounters with P-Funk influenced hip-hop made me realize
that they were from the same mind, but I think I’ve always wanted to get funked
up. Bedrosian’s book is a great reference and read for those who enjoy tearin’ da
roof off or getting funked up. As I was reading about all of the albums, the
kinds of thematic directions that Clinton and Company took the funk, I felt excited
and appreciative of how unique and influential this music has been. Reading
Bedrosian’s book also made me think about another book I read about Sun Ra’s
Chicago (Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City) and how living in a city like that helped him develop not just his
music, but also his ideas about freedom and society, and how a kind of Afro-futuristic
utopia was a kind of answer to much of the racism and discrimination that permeated
America. In many ways, Bedrosian’s overview of the events in the early 70s that
influenced P-Funk presented some bleak situations. In particular, he notes the
end of the Vietnam War and how Black soldiers were affected as having an
important influence on P-Funk’s music (one of the original members of the
Parliaments was killed in action in Vietnam). Furthermore, Watergate and the
kind of dire political situation also had an impact on America’s view. Thus, Parliament
ended up working on Chocolate City, where the members of Parliament can
create their own kind of earthly, urban utopia. I was also thinking about the
J.B.’s and “You Can Have Watergate…”, which probably featured Fred Wesley. Also,
it made me think about Gil Scott Heron’s Winter in America, which takes
a much darker look at Watergate and America in the mid-70s. Obviously, different
artists had different tracks, and Parliament’s is a much more joyous vision for
society. Plus, it’s great to see how Parliament envisioned a place like
Chocolate City brining other important Black artists together to celebrate and
create, serving important functions within this administration (one I’d greatly
appreciate now). It’s also interesting to think that Clinton returned to this
idea of a Black White House in the 90s with “Paint the White House Black,” and
presaged the Obama administration by about 33 years. Nevertheless, reading Bedrosian’s
analysis of the time period and the lyrical content of this important album
made me think about other albums from around the same time and even other
musicians, and how the can use their music for a vision of utopia or to
challenge any difficulties or inequalities in society. I loved thinking about
the idea of P-Funk as just being like an antidote for all of the social ills.
While it might not necessarily take care of all the problems, the music just makes
you want to move, and sometimes just dancing and celebrating (tearin’ da roof off)
is exactly what we need at the time.
Bedrosian notes that not all was bad in the world. Baseball
saw some of its first African American managers hired, and there was some
breakdown in the Cold War with the US and Soviet astronauts meeting in space,
also possibly influencing some of the content of later P-Funk music. Bedrosian
goes on to provide an overview of Parliament, the band, and how it eventually
evolved from The Parliaments to Parliament and Funkadelic. I also loved this
chapter. I had no idea George Clinton formed this band in Plainfield, NJ, which
is also the home of Bill Evans, who is not as funky, but is another important
NJ musician. I also didn’t even realize that Clinton started the band in the
1950s, and that P-Funk has been around for more than 70 years. This chapter
provides more information about how the social turmoil of the 60s also
influenced Parliament’s music, and eventually led to the formation of
Funkadelic, which I always found as a harder sound than the funk of Parliament.
This chapter also provides details about how members arrived in the P-Funk
family, and I also loved learning about many of the key members, and how their
unique musical voices contributed to the sounds of P-Funk over time. I’ve known
about Bootsy and Bernie, and I’ve always been fascinated by Eddie Hazel’s
playing, but I didn’t realize all of the other drummers and guitarists that
joined on, as well as how Fred Wesley came to be involved in the band.
The Subsequent chapters detail the discography of Parliament
Funkadelic. Bedrosian provides analysis of the music and songs, as well as who
played which instruments on which tracks, which was interesting to learn
because George Clinton would often ask musicians to take up the drums even
though that was not their main instrument. It was also cool to read about the
different effects, synthesizers and other studio effects that Clinton and crew
used to develop and hone the P-Funk sound of the 1970s. There’s a lot to learn in
these pages, and it immediately made me want to return to all of these albums
that I haven’t listened to for a while. I also learned a fun fact that Let’s
Take It To the Stage was like one of the first diss records where Funkadelic
tried to provoke some of the other big funk bands of the time.
These chapters covering the discography from Chocolate
City to the early 80s comprise most of the book. As I was reading, I kept
thinking how great it would be to have some pictures, and Bedrosian included
this in a little more than midway through. There are some promo posters, albums
from different countries, and some concert photos. There’s a great advertisement
for Let’s Take It to the Stage as well featuring a drawing of a woman in
a burger. I also liked seeing Clinton come out of a coffin for shows like Screamin’
Jay Hawkins. Just looking at the Mothership Connection album covers took
me back. That was the first Parliament album I had, and I remember getting it
from a hip-hop record store in Norristown, PA. I couldn’t how many hip-hop
songs came from the tracks on this album. It was such a strange cover of this
big Black man in short shorts coming out of a UFO. Such a great album, and such
great art work! Bedrosian’s book took me back, and was a great way to not only
reminisce, but also look forward and to be grateful for artists like George
Clinton, Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins, among so many more.
The book ends with appendices that have biographies of the
various members, which was also really interesting to read. There were many
members from NJ, but Parliament pulled from all over the country. I also think
this was the second book I’ve read over the past few months that featured the
Brecker Brothers (Peter Ames Carlin’s Tonight in Jungleland about the
making of Born to Run). However, Appendix B “Select Samples and
Interpolations” was the part of the book that really amazed me. Bedrosian has
organized the samples by album, and then lists the samples chronologically.
Again, it was fun to read the different artists and see how hip-hop (and other music)
has evolved by going back to the past. Sampling is really a unique aspect of Black
music in America, part of the tradition of Signifying, and Bedrosian helps to
catalog some of the most significant samples for hip-hop. I also loved how he
regularly acknowledges the early elements of hip-hop in P-Funk’s music. This
was an awesome book! It’s a great book for music fans, but especially for
hip-hop fans. I’m really grateful to Bedrosian for writing this book, and for
Bloomsbury Academic for publishing it. It brought the funk back into my life at
a time when I needed it most. Highly recommended!
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