Milestones: Funkadelic by Funkadelic
From George Clinton’s barbershop days to the drug-soaked studios, it’s a story of defiance and discovery. Funkadelic arrived late, sure, but they made the party unforgettable.
George Clinton’s musical career kicked off in humble surroundings. Born in a speck of a town in North Carolina, he chased bigger horizons, landing in New Jersey, where he split his days between snipping hair in a barbershop and dreaming up melodies after dark. There, he pieced together The Parliaments, a doo-wop outfit echoing the smooth vocal groups of the ‘50s. But Clinton wasn’t content with nostalgia. Ambition tugged him toward Detroit, Motown’s beating heart, where soul was king, and the air buzzed with possibility.
In the Motor City, he dipped his toes into songwriting for Motown, sharpening his craft. The Parliaments scored a hit with “I Wanna Testify,” a track that felt like the Temptations after a few too many drinks—polished, sure, but with a mischievous edge. Success, though, came with shackles. Revilot Records, their label, turned sour, and legal tangles over the band’s name pushed Clinton to the brink. Rather than fold, he flipped the script, ditching doo-wop’s constraints and birthing Funkadelic—a name and a sound that promised something untamed.
Funkadelic didn’t just arrive. They erupted. While Motown churned out glossy hits for the Supremes and Marvin Gaye, Clinton and his crew veered hard into uncharted territory. Their sound fused the gritty pulse of soul with the wild abandon of psychedelic rock, pulling threads from Jimi Hendrix’s electric wails, Sly Stone’s funky sprawl, and MC5’s Detroit-born snarl. With their thunderous Marshall Amps, even Vanilla Fudge left a mark after a fateful gig where they loaned Funkadelic their gear, sparking a sonic epiphany.
Drugs fueled the fire—LSD, in particular. Clinton later grinned about how that first acid trip before a Boston show “blew our minds completely,” rewiring how they heard and played music. The result? A glorious mess of distortion and freedom, a middle finger to the tight choreography of Motown and James Brown’s drill-sergeant precision. Funkadelic wasn’t about perfection; they craved the groove, the vibe, the unpolished truth.
Recording Funkadelic’s debut was less a process and more a storm. The sessions teetered on collapse—band members dropped out mid-take, with the rhythm section once vanishing entirely, only to wander back later. Eddie Hazel, the guitar prodigy, bolted too, though he’d return to lace the album with his magic. Drugs swirled through the mix, blurring lines between focus and frenzy. Yet, from this shambles, something extraordinary emerged.
Clinton leaned into the disorder. “Raggedy,” he called it, a badge of honor for a sound that refused to shine too bright. Marshall Amps roared, feedback howled, and the band let the music sprawl—unscripted, alive. Pinning down who played what? Good luck. The liner notes toss out names—Hazel on guitar, Bill Nelson on bass, Tawl Ross strumming rhythm, Tiki Fulwood pounding drums, Mickey Atkins on organ—but the truth feels hazier, lost in the haze of those wild days.
Funkadelic’s self-titled album unfolds like a fever dream, each track a portal into their warped universe. Take “Mommy, What’s a Funkadelic?” the nine-minute opener. Clinton’s voice slinks in, tying funk to raw, primal sex—“If you will suck my soul, I’ll lick your funky emotions,” he purrs—while distorted guitars tangle with a harmonica’s wail. It’s less a song and more a manifesto, dripping with surreal swagger.
Then there’s “I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing.” Ray Monette’s guitar slashes through the mix, a blistering cry over the band’s loose-limbed jam. Live, this one thrived—Clinton once said the vibe trumped precision, and you feel it here, a glorious racket that dares you to keep up. Contrast that with “Music for My Mother,” slower and moodier. Hazel (maybe) sings of funk’s roots by the railroad tracks, Nelson’s bass anchoring the lament, a nod to the genre’s ancestral pull.
The covers shine, too. “Good Ole Music” stretches a three-minute ditty into an eight-minute beast, splitting into psychedelic funk and a freewheeling Hazel-Atkins duel. “I’ll Bet You,” once a Theresa Lindsey soul gem penned by Clinton, morphs into a cavernous echo chamber, guitars and keys colliding in eerie harmony. “Qualify and Satisfy” fakes you out with bluesy restraint before exploding into a six-minute instrumental slugfest. And “What Is Soul?” closes it out, Clinton playing cosmic jester—soul’s “a joint rolled in toilet paper,” he deadpans—over spacey chants and a groove that lingers.
Funkadelic landed in 1970, a year thick with tension. The civil rights fight raged, Vietnam dragged on, and America wrestled with itself. Into this fray came Clinton’s crew, late to the psychedelic party but determined to make it theirs. Motown’s sheen and Brown’s discipline ruled the airwaves, but Funkadelic carved a different path. Their fusion of soul, rock, and psychedelia smashed norms, offering Black artists a broader canvas. Imperfection became their strength, a gritty counterpoint to the era’s polish. That debut album reshaped the future, inspiring countless acts to chase the funk.
Funkadelic’s first LP was a revolution pressed into vinyl. From Clinton’s barbershop days to the drug-soaked studios, it’s a story of defiance and discovery. The music’s rough edges, wild swings, and sheer nerve still hit hard all these years later. They arrived late, sure, but they made the party unforgettable. And honestly, isn’t that the point of funk?