Early Days

In the beginning, there was George Clinton. Actually, there was a barber shop, in Plainfield, New Jersey to be exact. In the 1950s, barbershops were big hangouts for communities, so the barbers would sing in harmony in order to entertain the people. George and the other barbers: Stingray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas realized how well their voices fit each other, so they decided to form a Doo-Wop group.

Taking the name "The Parliaments", the five men started recording around 1956, but weren't very successful. However, they kept at it and eventually decided to go on tour. Needing a backup band, the five singers hired some musicians. They were: Eddie Hazel on lead guitar, Tawl Ross on rhythm guitar, Billy "Bass" Nelson on, surprisingly, bass, and Tiki Fulwood on drums. This version of Parliament released the album Osmium¹.

The Parliaments continued with Doo-Wop for a while, but the musicians really weren't feeling it. The jams were shifting to rock more and more, so, after losing the name "The Parliaments" due to copyright reasons, Funkadelic was born. The funky psychedelic machine dedicated to rocking your eardrums.

The Psychedelic Period

Starting with their self titled debut, Funkadelic created songs that combined blues, funk, rock, and psychedelia². The first Funkadelic album is particularly rough, George Clinton decided to produce it even though he had no experience. The album was released without very much critical acclaim. Unfortunately, most people were not open to the idea of an all black rock band³ at that time. In addition, the songs were hardly pop music material, most of them are long jams, only two of them are under five minutes long. And with such memorable lyrics like "If you will suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions", this album was not meant to strike a chord with the general public.

The next album, Free your mind and your ass will follow, is a spacey affair, with lots of echo and feedback. Legend has it that the whole album was recorded during one acid trip. One thing notable about this album is the appearance of Bernie Worrell⁴. Bernie was a protegé on piano, writing his first concerto at the age of eight. This was the beginning of a long, long partnership with George Clinton. After rocking hard, the album ends with "Eulogy and Light", vocals recorded over backwards music. You can definitely hear the LSD on this album.

After Free your mind..., Funkadelic released Maggot Brain, which is considered the quintessential Funkadelic album. Maggot Brain starts off with a long guitar solo of the same name. The origin of this song came from George Clinton telling Eddie Hazel to play like his momma⁵ was dying. Eddie did not let him down, the song is one of the most soulful pieces of guitar work ever written. Originally, the whole band was supposed to be a part of "Maggot Brain", but George thought that Eddie was playing so well that he turned the rest of the band's mics off. The rest of the songs on Maggot Brain are an eclectic mix, ranging from Motownish singing(Can You Get To That), straight up rock(Super Stupid) to crazy freak out music(Wars of Armaggedon). The band was at an all time high, but, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and it turned out that Maggot Brain would be the last album to feature the original line up of Funkadelic.

A Stylistic Change

After Maggot Brain was released, Funkadelic underwent a huge change. Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, and Tiki Fulwood(guitar, bass and drums, respectively) had all left the band as permanent members⁶. Luckily, James Brown's band had got tired of their gig and defected to Funkadelic. Among the ex-JB's was Bootsy Collins, the master of Time and Bass himself. In addition to the JB's joining the band, George and the other singers hired a string's section, horns, and about 10 extra singers. Below is the full list of musicians.