The Handguide to Clavinet Funk
After “Superstition” went big, every keyboardist in Black music wanted that bite, and sixty songs follow the D6 from gospel quartets to Graterford Prison to Steely Dan.
The clavinet: a demonic device that amplifies the funkiness living inside a song to its absolute limit. Countless keyboardists possessed by this funk-amplified instrument have created pitch-black, ferocious funk. And listeners, in turn, have been seduced by the raw, exposed sound of an instrument that seems born for funk. This piece gathers a hand-picked selection from the songs covered in those posts, adds new material, and settles on sixty songs.
As a rule, one song per artist (per billing name), with exceptions. The essential clavinet-funk records sit alongside personal favorites. The order runs basically by release year, though a few songs unearthed and released years later are placed by recording year.
“Stanga” — Little Sister
Single: “Somebody’s Watching You” b/w (1970) · Clav: Sly Stone
The accepted history says the clavinet first entered Black popular music in 1968, on either Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You” (played by Isaac Hayes) or Stevie Wonder’s “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day.” Funky as those records feel, though, neither one is funk. So which song brought the clavinet into funk first? The record is murky at this point, but one of the earliest examples came out of Stone Flower, the label Sly Stone ran for a brief stretch at the start of the seventies: Little Sister’s “Stanga.” On this song and the singles the label issued by 6IX and Joe Hicks, Sly brought in the clavinet at the same moment he introduced the rhythm box. All of these songs, experiments that fed directly into There’s a Riot Goin’ On, are fascinating listens, but “Stanga,” tucked onto the B-side of “Somebody’s Watching You,” hits with the most force—the clavinet’s squirming leaves a rawness and a foreign-body aftertaste in the track. Personally, D’Angelo’s “1000 Deaths” (which contains no clavinet) starts to sound like it took this song, or Sly’s output from this period, as a reference point.
“Do Yourself a Favor” — Stevie Wonder
Where I’m Coming From (1971) · Clav: Stevie Wonder
Stevie was early to the clavinet with “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day,” but his first use of it on a funk number came with this song from Where I’m Coming From, released April 1971. By release order that puts it after “Stanga” (late 1970) and before Riot (November 1971). By recording date, “Do Yourself a Favor” was cut May 4, 1970; “Stanga” is undated, so which came first is honestly unknowable. Neither man would have had a chance to hear the other’s song before release, so Stevie didn’t write “Do Yourself a Favor” under Sly’s influence, and Sly didn’t pick up the clavinet on “Stanga” because Stevie stirred him to it. What is certain is that Sly and Funkadelic pushed at Stevie’s back as he charged toward funk. I wrote above that Stevie’s clavinet funk starts with this song, but it may be truer to say Stevie’s funk itself began with the clavinet. Nothing before it stripped funk down to its bare skeleton like this, and the clav’s sound became indispensable to his funk from here forward. With its mangled clavinet biting, squirming, and dragging itself across the track, this is the most ferocious, most ominous funk number of Stevie’s career—a different beast entirely from the finished Stevie-funk form of “Superstition” and “Higher Ground.”
“Poet” — Sly & The Family Stone
There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971) · Clav: Sly Stone
Riot, the funk monument that left its mark on everything after it, is also a clavinet-funk classic. The biggest reference for clavinet usage in funk is “Superstition,” but as Stevie traveled from the rough-hewn “Do Yourself a Favor” to that finished form, Sly’s experiments on Riot surely fed the process. Within the album, the bluesy “Just Like a Baby,” with its splintered clavinet needling through, is hard to pass up, but “Poet” is the pick—heavy funk where clavinet and rhythm box tangle together, pulling thick greasy strings while the groove writhes and bounces. Overwhelming.
“Outa Space” — Billy Preston
I Wrote a Simple Song (1971) · Clav: Billy Preston
Billy Preston might deserve a place next to Sly and Stevie Wonder as one of clavinet funk’s founding fathers. It’s well known that Billy plays the electric piano on Sly’s “Family Affair”; the two were old friends who recorded together before Sly’s debut. Billy’s I Wrote a Simple Song came out in November 1971, the same month as Riot. The title track went out as a single and fizzled commercially, but its B-side, the funky instrumental “Outa Space,” shot to No. 2 on the national chart. With its churning clav in the lead role from start to finish, this is probably clavinet funk’s first major hit.
“No Back Door” — The Violinaires
Groovin’ With Jesus (1971) · Clav: Billy Preston
The Violinaires, a gospel vocal group formed in Detroit in 1952. To carry the good word widely and reach the young, they presumably set God’s teachings to whatever music was current as the times changed. They left behind a large body of work, though the only one I’ve heard is this album, Groovin’ With Jesus—the title alone is perfect. It’s a masterpiece of gospel funk and soul, pitch-black in both the singing and the playing, and “No Back Door,” where a salty, deep vocal seeps with masculine melancholy, is a gem of gospel funk with the clavinet crackling and roaring through it.
“Superstition” — Stevie Wonder
Talking Book (1972) · Clav: Stevie Wonder
The clavinet spread through the funk scene from the mid-seventies on and earned full citizenship, and the record that decided that current was “Superstition.” Beginning with “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day” and passing through “Do Yourself a Favor,” this is the clavinet-funk monument Stevie finally arrived at. It’s a special song even among his signature records, and its run to No. 1 on the national singles chart is why clavinet usage in funk and soul exploded from 1973–74 onward. Talking Book also holds “Maybe Your Baby,” a funk number with a muddy, rough clavinet pulsing through it—personally I hear a Funkadelic-grade menace in that one and could argue for either—but there is no version of this piece that skips the single most important song in clavinet funk.
“A Joyful Process” — Funkadelic
America Eats Its Young (1972) · Clav: Bernie Worrell
In P-Funk’s imperial phase, Bernie Worrell is remembered for spacey, geometric synth sounds and for the swampy synth bass he perfected on “Flash Light,” but before he took off into space—through the first half of the seventies—he cut plenty of songs with an earthy clavinet grinding away. “A Joyful Process” belongs entirely to Bernie’s clavinet. Weaving in the melody of the Japanese children’s song “Shabondama,” the playing is free, full of mischief, and funky beyond argument—Bernie through and through.
“Funky Toes” — The Politicians featuring McKinley Jackson
The Politicians featuring McKinley Jackson (1972) · Clav: “Clay” Clarence Robinson or Melvin Griffin
The Politicians were the band McKinley Jackson led before he made his name as a songwriter and producer, and they doubled as the house band for Detroit’s Invictus/Hot Wax operation. Their lone album ranges from Funkadelic-grade psychedelic funk-rock to groovy soul instrumentals, and “Funky Toes” is its fiercest number—ferocious funk with a crushed clavinet clinging and coiling in thick grease.
“North Carolina” — Les McCann
Talk to the People (1972) · Clav: Les McCann
Les McCann’s Talk to the People is remembered for the mellow glow of his electric piano, but its clavinet-driven funk is just as worth hearing. “North Carolina” opens on a monster drum break, then chops the clavinet into the track from end to end—jazz funk cut deep. “Shamading” and others keep this album’s clav content running high.
“Smiling Faces Sometimes” — Bobbi Humphrey
Dig This! (1972) · Clav: Paul Griffin
Bobbi Humphrey, Blue Note’s flutist. From Dig This!, the 1972 album that predates her work with Larry and Fonce Mizell’s Sky High Productions on Blacks & Blues, a cover of the Undisputed Truth’s “Smiling Faces Sometimes.” The clavinet crawling across it was sampled on Common (Sense)’s “Puppy Chow.” The player is Paul Griffin, a master of the funky clavinet.
“Thinkin’” — Compost
Take Off Your Body (1972) · Clav: Jack DeJohnette
A band formed by jazz session musicians. The distinguishing mark is that Jack DeJohnette, a drummer by trade, stays almost entirely on keyboards, and the clav-heavy funky material stands out. The top pick is “Thinkin’,” jazz funk where a biting clavinet tangles with dry percussion.
“Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” — 24-Carat Black
Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth (1973) · Clav: James Talbert
From the lone album by the group Stax arranger Dale Warren built around members who would later form Shotgun, the title track, long enshrined as a rare-groove classic. Cool funk that gives off a dull glow inside pitch darkness, with the clavinet creeping ominously through it.
“Well Phase I” — Masterfleet
High on the Sea (1973) · Clav: Linus Ceph
A mysterious four-man funk band. Many of their songs run a clinging, viscous clavinet with a strangeness that recalls the Ohio Players’ Westbound-period work. “Well Phase I” is a funk number with clavinet and wah guitar running groovy and side by side. There’s also “Well Phase II,” which adds strings on top and takes off at a full sprint.
“Why Can’t We Make It” — Alphonse Mouzon
The Essence of Mystery (1973) · Clav: Alphonse Mouzon
Jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon’s first date as a leader stakes out his ambitions as a multi-threat artist—drums, of course, plus assorted percussion, keyboards, composing, and arranging, all handled himself. On “Why Can’t We Make It,” Mouzon’s own clavinet swarms across the track like a column of arthropods—a jazz-funk tune with legs.
“Funky Things on Your Mind” — Con Funk Shun
Organized Con Funk Shun (1978) · Clav: Felton C. Pilate II
Recorded in Memphis in 1973, during Con Funk Shun’s apprentice years, and shelved until 1978, when it closed out a vault-material album released after the band’s Mercury debut. Felton Pilate II’s clavinet asserts itself hard on “Funky Things on Your Mind,” and the muddy, dirtied funk here sits a long way from the polished pop-funk they later became known for.
“Up for the Down Stroke” — Parliament
Up for the Down Stroke (1974) · Clav: Bernie Worrell
Between “Testify,” “Presence of a Brain,” and the rest, this is one of the most clavinet-forward albums in the P-Funk catalog, and the peak is the title track. Over a loose, dragging groove, the clav chops away in crisp little strokes like guitar cutting—supremely funky. The song where Bootsy Collins fully came aboard and P-Funk’s signature sound locked into place, it stands as one of the most important records in P-Funk history and one of the finest clavinet-funk records anywhere. Some hold that the clavinet here is Billy “Bass” Nelson, but this piece goes with the credits: it’s Bernie.
“Don’t Call Her No Tramp” — Betty Davis
They Say I’m Different (1974) · Clav: Tony Vaughn
Betty Davis, funk’s great loner, loaded all three of her seventies albums with heavyweight clavinet funk, and “Don’t Call Her No Tramp,” from the second, They Say I’m Different, is personally one of the greatest clavinet-funk records ever made. Tony Vaughn, later of Father’s Children, sends his clavinet slithering across the song from the opening seconds—super-heavyweight funk of the highest tonnage. The album holds more nasty clav-loaded funk in “He Was a Big Freak” and “Git in There,” though those are played by Graham Central Station’s Hershall “Happiness” Kennedy.
“Machine Gun” — Commodores
Machine Gun (1974) · Clav: Milan Williams
As examples of clavinet in funk go, this is probably the best known alongside Stevie’s “Superstition.” This is the Commodores before the ballads took over and the funk went soft. The clavinet fires off in rapid bursts, true to the title, and makes this the band’s single greatest piece of funk.
“Jungle Man” — The Meters
Rejuvenation (1974) · Clav: Art Neville
Art Neville, the Meters’ keyboardist, is remembered for cheerfully rolling piano in the New Orleans tradition and for organ tones whose weathered color carries both melancholy and funkiness, but on “Jungle Man” he grinds away hard on the clavinet. Zigaboo’s crushing drums and Leo Nocentelli’s funky guitar riff take the spotlight here, yet the clavinet, filthy-toned and wriggling underneath from start to finish like a basso continuo, does serious work.
“Streakin’ Cheek to Cheek” — Ohio Players
Skin Tight (1974) · Clav: Billy Beck
Though it sits on Skin Tight, after the Mercury move, this song carries the reptilian grease (?) of the Westbound years in full. Billy Beck’s clavinet, creaking and clinging, is what gives it that feel—which raises a thought: is this really Beck, or could it be Junie? “Jive Turkey” carries a vocal that sounds like nobody but Junie, and it wouldn’t be strange if these were sessions from when he was still in the band. Call it a fantasy.
“Spank-A-Lee” — Herbie Hancock
Thrust (1974) · Clav: Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock and the clavinet means “Chameleon” before anything else, but this piece goes instead to “Spank-A-Lee,” from Thrust, the album with the most overflowing blackness of his career. Over the grinding hardcore funk that Mike Clark and Paul Jackson hammer out, Herbie’s clavinet growls and writhes. A heavy-funk masterpiece proving what happens when virtuoso jazz musicians play funk in dead earnest—everything on this album except the mellow “Butterfly” runs the clav filthy.
“Tell Me Something Good” — Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
Rags to Rufus (1974) · Clav: Kevin Murphy
“Tell Me Something Good,” the song Stevie Wonder handed Rufus, is the dirtiest funk in the band’s catalog, and the reason is the clavinet—pure undisguised Stevie funk, scrabbling across the track like an arthropod and smearing everything it touches. The player is Kevin Murphy, not Stevie, but the performance is unmistakably studied from him.
“No Time to Burn” — Black Heat
No Time to Burn (1974) · Clav: Johnell Grey
From the killer second album by Black Heat, Washington, D.C.’s coolest funk band, the white-hot title track that blows its doors open. From the first second the clavinet writhes, glares, and creaks, and the whole thing detonates into pitch-black, blazing psychedelic funk-rock. The heat coming off this song is tremendous, and the violent clav playing is what keeps the band’s whole groove surging forward.
“I Have Changed” — H.P. Riot
H.P. Riot (1974) · Clav: Dewayne Sweet
H.P. Riot, a Bay Area funk band raised on Sly & the Family Stone, cut their first album in Canada, and it’s a keeper stuffed with clavinet funk. “Gotta Go,” where the clav coils around itself and conjures a ritual mood, is potent, but the best is “I Have Changed,” hot and full of momentum—imagine Stand!-era Sly fronting the Tower of Power horns, a funk number full of late-sixties Bay Area air, while the clavinet bouncing through it belongs to the post-Riot, post-”Superstition” era. Dewayne Sweet, just 18 at the time, played the clav while serving as music director and arranger, and appears to have held the band’s musical reins.
“In the Scheme of Things” — The Bar-Kays
Cold Blooded (1974) · Clav: Winston Stewart
Cold Blooded, the Bar-Kays’ final album on Volt, is wall-to-wall nasty funk to match its lurid cover, with clavinet poured all over it.
“In the Scheme of Things” is the bruiser—heavy funk with the clav shoving forward, grinding, and shoving again.
“I-Yike-It” — The Gap Band
Magicians Holiday (1974) · Clav: Charlie Wilson
The song that opens the Gap Band’s first album. “I-Yike-It” swirls clavinet and organ together into a funk number, played by lead singer Charlie Wilson himself. It sounds nothing like the Gap Band to come, but the muddy, clouded funk sound here is its own reward.
“Jelly Roll” — The Power of Attorney
From the Inside... (1974) · Clav: Wilbur C. Brown
From the Sigma Sound recording by a funk band of inmates serving time at Pennsylvania’s Graterford Prison. A heavy, sunless mood hangs over the whole album, and “Jelly Roll” keeps chopping the clavinet into the track without letup—funk with an eerie air about it, like it’s drifting out from behind the bars.
“Fat Mouth” — Weldon Irvine
In Harmony (1974) · Clav: Weldon Irvine
On Cosmic Vortex and Spirit Man for RCA, Weldon Irvine cut one cosmic jazz-funk classic after another with synthesizers of every stripe plus the clavinet, but on “Fat Mouth,” which opens In Harmony, released on Strata-East just before the move, he was already running the clav at full growl through pitch-black jazz funk. Irvine still worked in a spiritual register at this point, but the clav here, flung around like it’s spraying muck in every direction, is glorious.
“Fever in the Funkhouse” — General Crook
General Crook (1974) · Clav: General Crook
The Chicago songwriter’s lone album turns out, against expectation, to be rich in funk numbers where a violent clavinet runs wild and unaccountable. “Fever in the Funkhouse”—the title alone promises delivery—is super-heavy clavinet funk, Crook himself grinding and churning in the dirt while the clav thickens a groove that lurches along with real weight. “Reality” and “Lying Cheatin’ Woman” bring more nasty clavinet funk besides.
“Finders Keepers” — Chairmen of the Board
Skin I’m In (1974) · Clav: Bernie Worrell
From Skin I’m In, the funkiest album in the Chairmen’s catalog. “Finders Keepers” is psychedelic funk-rock with a splintered clavinet chopping through it, and the horn section boiling up behind makes it seriously cool. The album was recorded around 1971, and Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, and Bernie Worrell of Funkadelic—a band with deep Invictus ties—are said to have taken part. The funky clav playing here is generally accepted as Bernie’s.
“Sharp Nine” — The Incredible Bongo Band
The Return of the Incredible Bongo Band (1974) · Clav: Mike Melvoin
The second album from Michael Viner’s studio-musician collective, following Bongo Rock, the breakbeat bible that holds “Apache,” sometimes called hip-hop’s national anthem. On “Sharp Nine,” the guitar riff the Brand New Heavies lifted for the opening of “People Get Ready” and the boiling bongo break grab the attention, but the clavinet squirming underneath holds its own in this jazz-rock tune. Mike Melvoin, who plays it, was a jazz pianist with credits alongside Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys—and the father of Wendy Melvoin, guitarist of Prince & the Revolution.
“Love and Understanding” — Bootsy, Phelps & Gary
My Mind Set Me Free (2019) · Clav: Sony Talbert
From the compilation gathering rare singles and unreleased material from Bootsy Collins’s stretch after the J.B.’s and before P-Funk. Cut in 1974 by the three names on the marquee plus Frankie “Kash” Waddy—the future core of the Rubber Band—“Love & Understanding” saves its violence for the back half, where a filthy clavinet comes flapping, squirming, and dragging into view. Devastating. The player, Sony Talbert, is credited on the Rubber Band’s first album, Stretchin’ Out In, then appears to have left almost immediately; the rest of his career is a blank.
“The Heat Is On, Pts. 1 & 2” — The Isley Brothers
The Heat Is On (1975) · Clav: Chris Jasper
Chris Jasper, a clavinet master fit to stand with Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, and Bernie Worrell. His role in the mellow side of the seventies Isleys was enormous, but his clavinet playing contributed just as heavily to the funk side. Jasper started using the clavinet on 3 + 3. The classics run deep—”Live It Up,” “The Pride”—but if this piece takes only one, it’s “The Heat Is On,” where the clav’s wriggle concentrates and multiplies the funkiness of the song.
“They Call Us Wild” — The Wild Magnolias
They Call Us Wild (1975) · Clav: Willie Tee
The second album by the group that put New Orleans’s Black Indians out front, backed by a band built around the Gaturs—the title track is the pick. Willie Tee’s clavinet winds around the bassline and kneads the groove into shape; there is nothing to fault in how cool this is. The first album piles on the funky clav as well: “Handa Wanda,” “Smoke My Peace Pipe (Smoke It Right),” “(Somebody Got) Soul, Soul, Soul.”
“Tight Rope” — Junie
When We Do (1975) · Clav: Walter “Junie” Morrison
Junie’s first album is the most gloriously unbound, anything-goes record in his discography, and “Tight Rope” is a funk number continuous with his Ohio Players days, the clavinet out front and busy. Hear this and it becomes obvious how much of Westbound-era Ohio Players’ musical identity was Junie’s doing.
“Dead On It” — James Brown
Sex Machine Today (1975) · Clav: James Brown
Not many JB-related records push the clavinet forward, but Sex Machine Today, from 1975, after his peak had passed, holds clavinet funk unusual for him. The original pressing lists no players, though the 2016 LP reissue reportedly includes personnel. By that account the clavinets on the album belong to JB himself and Charles Sherrell. “Dead On It” is an epic funk workout running past thirteen minutes: the rhythm section drags the groove along the ground while wah guitar and clavinet grind overhead—heavyweight funk. And since JB sings “I’m going over to the clavinet, oh I got to play some clavinet,” the clav on this one is presumably his own playing. One more, “Problems,” is mid-tempo funk with clavinet threading through; that one may be Sherrell.
“You Can’t Love Me, If You Don’t Respect Me” — Lyn Collins
Single: “You Can’t Love Me, If You Don’t Respect Me” (1975) · Clav: Leon Pendarvis
On this single-only Lyn Collins song, the players (horns aside) aren’t the J.B.’s of the day but New York studio musicians—Cornell Dupree, Gordon Edwards, Jimmy Madison—some of whom also appear on Sex Machine Today above. And the ferocious clavinet belongs to Leon Pendarvis. EPMD’s “For My People,” which samples this clav, is mega-funky in its own right.
“Gangster Boogie” — Chicago Gangsters
I Choose You (1975) · Clav: Tennyson Stephens
Ohio-born but Chicago-based, and named accordingly: the Chicago Gangsters. “Gangster Boogie,” the killer from their first album, has been sampled everywhere from LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” to Tony! Toni! Toné!’s “Gangsta Groove,” though most lifts use the vocal chanting the title; few have touched this funky clavinet. The player is Tennyson Stephens, who also released an album on Kudu billed jointly with Phil Upchurch.
“Music Slave” — Jade
In Pursuit (1975) · Clav: Gregory Rich
A six-piece from Norfolk, Virginia. Whether they operated as a permanent band or a studio-musician project is unclear, but Carol Kaye and her husband Spider Webb took part in the sessions, likely Willie Weeks as well, and William D. Smith produced and arranged. “Music Slave,” the album’s finest number, is groovy clavinet funk with a rugged surface and a mellow undercurrent.
“Why Does It Feel So Good to Me” — Hidden Strength
Hidden Strength (1975) · Clav: Grover Underwood or Ken Sullivan
From the lone album by a seven-piece band that ended up, true to its name, a hidden funk gem. “Why Does It Feel So Good to Me” is a cool funk number with a fat clavinet prowling through it. Two otherwise unknown keyboardists, Grover Underwood and Ken Sullivan, are both credited on clavinet, and which one plays here is anyone’s guess.
“Evolution” — Roy Ayers Ubiquity
Mystic Voyage (1975) · Clav: Roy Ayers
Roy Ayers rang the clavinet memorably across his own mid-seventies records, and the album with the highest clav content of them all is Mystic Voyage. Harry Whitaker held the keyboard chair in Ubiquity before this, Philip Woo after, but here Ayers plays the clavinet himself, and on some songs it comes close to upstaging the vibraphone. “Evolution” is one of those, but vibes and clav sprinting neck and neck through jazz funk is, as expected, cool beyond complaint.
“Them Yebtheyet” — Buari
Buari (1975) · Clav: Paul Griffin
Ghana-born Alhaji Sidiku Buari cut his first album in New York, backed by the mighty rhythm section of Bernard Purdie and Gordon Edwards, with Paul Griffin on keyboards and clavinet. “Them Yebtheyet” is mid-tempo funk of real power, bass and clavinet undulating together into a ritual mood. “Karam Bani” brings more clav-forward Afro-disco funk.
“The Gap” — Ice
Import Export (1975) · Clav: Frank Abel
From the second album under the name Ice (a.k.a. Lafayette Afro Rock Band). The Lafayette-billed songs use clavinet too, but Ice’s more straight-ahead US-styled funk lets the clav get properly rank, and “The Gap” is the rankest of them—funk with the clavinet wriggling and dragging itself through the muck.
“Mr. Cool” — Sweet Sensation
Sweet Sensation (1975) · Clav: Leroy Smith
This Sweet Sensation formed in Manchester and made only this one album, though their debut single “Sad Sweet Dreamer,” released ahead of it, apparently ran to No. 1 on the UK singles chart. The single sleeve shows eight members; by the time of the album they’d shrunk by half to four. The album leans pop as a whole, but the opener “Mr. Cool” is a rewarding number by clavinet-funk standards.
“Cissy Strut” — Johnny Lewis Quartet
Shuckin’ ‘N Jivin’ (1998 reissue) · Clav: James Moody
When Luv N’ Haight reissued their lone 1972 album Shuckin’ ‘N Jivin’, the bonus tracks included this cover of the Meters’ “Cissy Strut,” originally recorded in 1975 for a cassette sold by hand at live shows. It turns out to be jazz funk of criminal intensity—stabbing drums, the clavinet growling at full grind. Startling. The James Moody on clavinet shares a name with the famous saxophonist and nothing else.
“R.S.E.” — Raw Soul Express
Raw Soul Express (1976) · Clav: Chris Perkins
The lone album by Miami funk band Raw Soul Express is a masterwork stacked with quality from funk through mellow, and “R.S.E.,” the opener that reads like the band’s own theme song, is exhilarating funk with a funky clav riff bouncing from the first bar to the last. Perfect.
“Ain’t It Funky” — The John Wagner Coalition
Shades of Brown (1976) · Clav: Chuck Klingbell or Michael Maddux
An album of wall-to-wall JB covers assembled by John Wagner, once a producer at King Records, and much of it swaps the guitar role in JB funk over to the clavinet—rich feeding for a clav fiend. “Ain’t It Funky” keeps the clavinet buzzing from start to finish. The core players are members of Main Street, a band Wagner produced the same year, but the clavinet appears to be an outside hire from the rock and blues side—Chuck Klingbell or Michael Maddux.
“Cheyenne’s Comin’” — Cheyenne’s Comin’
Cheyenne’s Comin’ (1976) · Clav: Clarence Bell
From the lone album by the band Cheyenne Fowler led, this song—presumably their theme—is monster funk: thick horns blasting like a steam whistle, a heavyweight groove at full charge, and the clavinet chopped in dead funky from the opening seconds. The player is one Clarence Bell (Discogs misprints him as “Clarinet—Clarence Bell,” though the back jacket credits Clavinet plainly). Supposedly the same Clarence Bell who played organ on Stevie’s “Golden Lady” and synthesizer on Leo’s Sunship’s We Need Each Other—but that’s Discogs information too, so take it with salt.
“Aw Funk It” — Funk Band, Inc.
Funk Band, Inc. (1976) · Clav: N/A
From the lone album by a California funk band. The record is well made, but true to the anonymous name, little on it belongs to this band alone, and the muddy churn I personally want from funk is mostly absent—except for one song. “Aw Funk It” is dirty funk with the clavinet squirming in a mangled mess. Nothing is known about the recording lineup, but the prevailing theory holds it a studio-musician project centered on the noted guitarist Jay Graydon, who also wrote the song.
“Green Earrings” — Steely Dan
The Royal Scam (1976) · Clav: Paul Griffin
From The Royal Scam, the funkiest-feeling record in the Steely Dan catalog, its funkiest song by a mile. So who plays this gloriously funky clavinet? The credited keyboardists are Don Grolnick, Donald Fagen, Paul Griffin, and Victor Feldman. Asked, an AI answered Paul Griffin—his third appearance in this piece, tying Bernie Worrell for the most. Ice Cube’s “Don’t Trust ‘Em” sampled this clav, but the finest use is Organized Konfusion’s “Walk Into the Sun,” which sets it against the bassline of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Runnin’.”
“Some People Can Do What They Like” — Robert Palmer
Some People Can Do What They Like (1976) · Clav: Bill Payne or James Alan Smith or William D. Smith
After a first album backed by the Meters and Lowell George at the center, and a second with the Little Feat members piling in alongside George, this third has the Feat crew back but no Lowell George. The title track has the clavinet pulling the groove alongside drums and bass the whole way through, with harmonica joining near the end to turn things Stevie-ward. The player is Feat’s Bill Payne, or New York studio hand James Alan Smith, or Smitty—William D. Smith. Impossible to tell.
“Reachin’” — Roger Glenn
Reachin’ (1976) · Clav: Mark Soskin
From the flutist’s album backed by the unlikely pairing of Larry and Fonce Mizell with the Headhunters—the title track. Clavinet and guitar grapple and sprint through jazz funk that plays like Sky High meets the Bay Area; hardly anything else sounds like it. For someone who loves both the Sky High sound and Bay Area funk, it’s one song with two pleasures inside.
“Get Down People” — 400 Years of What
Single: “Get Down People” (1976) · Clav: Greg “Tuffy” Jackson
The only single ever released by 400 Years of What, the Cincinnati funk band that held drummer Frankie “Kash” Waddy—Bootsy Collins’s running mate from the Pacemakers through the Rubber Band and beyond—and saxophonist Randy Wallace, a colleague of both from the House Guests days. A funk tune with the clavinet spraying funkiness in every direction. Outrageous.
“Funk Ain’t Being Funky” — Rick Mason and Rare Feelings
The Inner Dimensions of Rick Mason and Rare Feelings (1977) · Clav: Darnell Farrow
This lone album by the band bassist Rick Mason led is a nasty piece of goods, packed tight with dope, thick-boned funk. “Funk Ain’t Being Funky” is the nastiest of the lot—ferocious heavy funk where the leader’s slap bass and the clavinet tangle around each other.
“Functus” — Experience Unlimited
Free Yourself (1977) · Clav: Michael “Prof. Funk” Hughes
From the album that Experience Unlimited—later renamed E.U.—released before go-go, on Black Fire, the label run by Oneness of Juju. “Functus” churns a dirty clavinet through a pitch-black groove where funk, Afro, and rock all boil in the same pot. Considerable strength here.
“See Funk” — Southern Energy Ensemble
Southern Energy Ensemble (1993) · Clav: Nathaniel Lee
A spiritual Afro-jazz-funk band from the Oneness of Juju orbit. Like Experience Unlimited above, they recorded in 1977, but the tapes never came out at the time; Black Fire finally released them in 1993. More earthbound than Oneness—there are funk numbers here you can actually dance to—which makes it an easier listen. “See Funk” is one of those, street funk with the clavinet chopping the rhythm from start to finish. That dirtied clav tone is exactly what keeps a song that could drift toward disco tied down in the back alley. “F-U-N-K-Y Til the Day I Die”—another perfect title—delivers quality clavinet funk in the same style.
“Vanilla Gorilla” — Rubicon
Rubicon (1978) · Clav: Jim Pugh
A seven-piece white band formed by Jerry Martini, formerly of Sly & the Family Stone, among others. At heart a rock band, but a few songs demand attention as funk, and “Vanilla Gorilla” is one—heavy bass, a thick horn section, and a wildly funky clavinet running loose, like early-seventies Graham Central Station or Betty Davis reborn.
“Sure Boy” — Rahsaan Patterson
Love in Stereo (1999) · Clav: Van Hunt
Rahsaan Patterson’s second album runs high on funk. Production was split roughly in half between Jamey Jaz, returning from the debut, and a rising Van Hunt, whose “Sure Boy” is a funk number soaked in Sly. Hunt plays the clavinet himself, and the song calls up something like Sly’s “Just Like a Baby.”
“Asiko” — Tony Allen
Black Voices (1999) · Clav: Fixi
Black Voices, the 1999 album that Tony Allen, the original Afrobeat drummer, made with French producer Doctor L, keeps the clavinet snapping at the heels of the leader’s drums throughout. “Asiko” is the monster—a biting clav creaking and grinding, with a psychedelic feel to the touch, clavinet funk at full strength. The player, Fixi—François-Xavier Bossard—is an accordionist working in France. The sample on “Heat,” from Common’s Like Water for Chocolate the following year, left its own strong impression.
“Cold Blooded” — Common
Like Water for Chocolate (2000) · Clav: D’Angelo
On Like Water for Chocolate, Common’s finest album, the song after “Heat”—the one that samples Tony Allen’s “Asiko” above—is “Cold Blooded.” Over a sample of Parliament’s “Funkin’ for Fun,” the mangled, crushed clavinet chopping across the top is D’Angelo. Bernie Worrell’s clav playing hangs back on “Funkin’ for Fun,” but D’Angelo’s drunken performance rocks the whole thing side to side. The funkiest song on the album, and personally the favorite of everything Common and J Dilla ever produced together. Dilla’s sound left its mark on Voodoo, and that influence bleeds through D’Angelo’s playing here too.