Funkadelic – Funkadelic

My loving wife gave me a great biography for my birthday – “George Clinton and the Cosmic Odyssey of the P-Funk Empire,” by Kris Needs. Great because it answers the question Shawn (owner of the only black-owned record store in greater Philly, Forever Changes in Phoenixville) and I were gabbing over last night: how did this happen?

Not the “this” that’s preoccupying us in this election week as we prepare for an even worse descent into madness, lawlessness and hate than before, though despite ourselves, we talked about that, too. But the “this” that is Funkadelic – the “this” that is a very standard doo wop group trying to compete on the level of The Temptations, getting laughed off the Apollo stage by The O’Jays, transforming into the most boundary-free, intensely philosophical musical circus that ever existed.

I needed this book, because, as I’ve written before, I came late to Funkadelic. I didn’t know how to listen to Funkadelic when I was younger – they didn’t do the things that I knew pop music should do, the things R&B music should do, and so what I heard wasn’t cohesive and understandable. Now, with much older ears, I’m finally able to hear what these young men were putting down.

I didn’t buy this debut album from Funkadelic until the beginning of 2022 (and here I am at the end of 2024, just catching up to writing about it), and from the first listen, my wife and I both couldn’t believe it: this is their first album? Because it sounds like something any ordinary band would have gotten to after six or seven previous versions of their sound. (Contrary to the thought that is always in my head, the thought that would make evolutionary sense, the first Parliament album came out five months after this 1970 debut.) The first song – the first song! – is a nine-minute odyssey titled, “Mommy, What’s a Funkadelic?” The first line (!) is “If you will suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions.” There is no way my teenaged head could have handled hearing this in the ’70s.

I think of 1970 as late for the psychedelic scene, but this album was released just a few months after Woodstock, after all, when the message of peace and love was still getting out to the nation while a corrupt hatemonger occupied the highest office. Checks and balances and a less corrupt legal system saved us then; those are largely gone, as the so-called party of law and order favors neither, seeking only self-enrichment and the dismantlement of society. I don’t feel good about it and neither should anyone. I don’t even feel good about continuing this project, but maybe it’ll give me a bit of relief from the awful reality we’re about to experience.

It turns out that I’ve already written about this debut album, and just never got this one off the “new acquisitions” shelf. That’s okay. I can write about things twice.

First posted 11-9-2024.