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Old 04-21-2008
St Petersburg native St Petersburg native is offline
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David F did spell Parliament Funkadelic correctly, but is he aware that these were actually two separate groups? George Clinton used most of the same personnel on recordings by both groups (including ex-James Brown sidemen Bootsy Collins and horn players Maceo Parker, Albert "Pee Wee" Ellis, and Fred Wesley); the Parliament (named after Clinton's 50's- '60's vocal group the Parliaments) recordings are mostly concept albums a la Frank Zappa and the Funkadelic offerings are, as the name implies, psychedelic in nature.
More great 70's funk: Herbie Hancock ("Headhunters" and "Thrust"), Miles Davis ("On the Corner"), the Brecker Brothers (funk is a main ingredient in this fusion stew), the Meters, Tower of Power, Little Feat, Sea Level, Mandrill, War, the Isley Brothers, the Average White Band, the Bar-Kays, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers (who later branched off into a precursor of hip-hop called "go-go"), Sugarloaf, Kool and the Gang, Mother's Finest, Billy Preston (no funk collection is complete without "Out-a-space"), Dr. John, Confunkshun, and the Brothers Johnson readily come to mind (you'll have fun diggin' on Louis Johnson's bass playing).
I'm not so keen on disco, but Pleasure and Chic (Bernard Edwards was another bass titan) stand out to me as examples of this genre's better moments. The Salsoul recordings that use the New York session heavies of the day (the Breckers, David Sanborn, Will Lee, Steve Gadd, and others) have their magic moments (I will endure the awful singer in the Odyssey recordings just to hear those horns, especially Mike Brecker's brief yet blistering solo on "Native New Yorker").
By the way, Mr. David F is truly a good sport as well as having great taste in funk! The big deal about P-Funk being two groups? George Clinton is a marketing genius- even though this idea wasn't new at the time; at one point in his early career Duke Ellington had three or four groups concurrently recording under different names (with,of course, separate compensation- mo' money!) yet with the same personnel.
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